Reuters says, "The Financial Times wants to keep selling subscriptions for its digital news directly to readers rather than surrender control of new customers who sign up via Apple's iPad, the managing director of FT.com said." Under Apple's rules, which state that purchases available online also have to be available through the app, this could mean that the Financial Times app will be pulled from Apple's App Store.

Well! This is interesting. Is Financial Times upset about the 70-30 split that Apple demands from all in-app subscriptions? That'd be understandable, I guess...oh, wait, what?

...the FT values direct relations with its customers which allow it to tailor advertising and products to its audience, and is resisting Apple's efforts to channel them through the App Store.

"We don't want to lose our direct relationship with our subscribers. It's at the core of our business model," Rob Grimshaw told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

Oh. It's the fact that Apple won't release subscriber information to media outlets, which Reuters describes as a valued "direct relationship." Sounds so loving! Thing is, I subscribe to four magazines—as someone who works in print, it feels like my duty to subscribe to a few magazines—and I was saddened to learn that at least one of those magazines sold my information to a ton of different junk-mail advertisers. I've already written the magazine in question to tell them to stop selling my information, and I'm going to let that subscription lapse. So much for direct relationships.

Obviously, Apple isn't holding subscriber information back from news outlets to be the good guy, but it's really hard for me to give a damn that Financial Times is losing access to sellable information. They need to make a better case than that.