Sure they do. They just prohibit you from putting that in your app's UI. If you were selling your software in a box at Walmart, they may well refuse to display

Sure they do. They just prohibit you from putting that in your app's UI. If you were selling your software in a box at Walmart, they may well refuse to display it on the shelf if you included a message stating that Walmart had just gotten 30% of the software's and that the publisher had just gotten 20% of the software's price. Similarly, many publishers would likely refuse to publish such a message. I don't think the question of why Apple doesn't allow such messaging is all that interesting. I do think it's interesting that: 1. Apple is more likely to notice such a message buried within app UI, because they review apps. Walmart would probably only catch it if it appeared on the packaging. 2. We're more likely to hear about it , since we're more likely to know someone who has published an app on the Apple store than we are to know someone who has published an app through a traditional channel then marketed it on retail shelves.