I think you've missed my point. The D&B requirement is a natural consequence of the fact that Apple has decided to require that publishers be an established bus

I think you've missed my point. The D&B requirement is a natural consequence of the fact that Apple has decided to require that publishers be an established business. My point wasn't to defend Apple's decision in that matter. You can setup Google Play, use EC2 or send a SendGrid email because those companies haven't made the same decision that Apple has. I was mainly pointing out that D&B is a huge player that a lot of us have heard of. It makes complete sense that, once Apple has made the decision to require an established business, that they'd delegate the validation process to D&B. Just because people who have never thought about solving a problem like Apple decided to solve haven't heard of D&B, doesn't make them some "random" company. They're the market leader in their space and, as someone used their licensed data in a product, it makes complete sense to me that Apple would use their service in support of their business decision.