Yahoo CEO: Apple's policies will cause iAd to 'fall apart'

Yahoo's outspoken CEO Carol Bartz told Reuters in an interview posted late Wednesday that Apple's desire to control the advertising over its iAd mobile advertising service would cause it to "fall apart."

"Advertisers are not going to have that type of control over them," she said of the Cupertino company's policies. "Apple wants total control over those ads." Although it wasn't specified, her comments likely stemmed from reports that Apple was exerting some creative control over ads submitted to run on its service.

Typically, advertisers are given all but free reign to create the ads as they wish. However, like the App Store, it appears Apple wants to ensure ads meet a certain aesthetic and are compelling enough that they are useful to the viewer. App developers can then run these ads to monetize apps, of which Apple takes 40 percent of those revenues.

When announcing iAd back in April, Jobs had said the key feature of these ads would be their interactivity, as they are intended to keep the user within the application itself. This is different from other mobile networks, which typically pull the user out of the app and launch a website on the device's browser to view the content.

Bartz may not be alone in her thinking, but some companies already depending on iAd have praised the platform, saying those viewing these interactive ads are doing so for much longer periods of time as opposed to the standard web ad. Nissan has reported click through rates are five times higher on ads that run through Apple's network.

Not everyone has had a positive experience with Apple over iAd though: it's rumored that fashion label Chanel cancelled its plans for iAd after issues over creative control had surfaced, bolstering Bartz's point.