“In the event that Apple refunds any such price to an end-user, You shall reimburse, or grant Apple a credit for, an amount equal to the price for that Licensed Application. Apple will have the right to retain its commission on the sale of that Licensed Application, notwithstanding the refund of the price to the end-user.”
My guess is that they are including this in their contracts to allow for punitive actions in cases of things like the $999 "I am Rich app".
Of course, there's still the chance that I'm completely wrong and Apple is intentionally trying to scare developers away from a fledgling platform and towards Palm's WebOS and Android; but I think it's a bit silly to get up in arms about this until there's something more detailed than the parsing of somewhat unclear contractual terms.
(Also, thank you for showing us the section that they're talking about!)
When the poop hits the fan, they have all the legal leeway they want to strong arm you and you cannot do jack. My favorite example of this is the forced arbitration clauses, where you consent not to even go to court.
The average consumer does not have sufficient access access to legal counsel to enter into such contracts prudently.
This whole arrangement is a slap in the face of equal protection under law principle. The relative cost of legal representation for a large corporate entity is nothing compared to me trying to get legal opinion on my AT&T contract (shudder).
