Apple is instructed to stop forcing iOS developers to pay for goods only through the application.
The company's order was issued by the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), which is authorized by Russian law to monitor compliance with the law on protection of competition. The FAS believes that Apple Inc. imposes unfavorable conditions of interaction on application developers in the mobile operating system iOS released by it, which violates the norms of Federal Law-135.
This is not the only violation identified by the FAS in Apple's activities in the market for distributing applications for the iOS operating system. In July of this year, the service already found the company guilty of abuse of dominance, for which a fine of 0.01% to 0.15 of the annual revenue received in the Russian Federation will be imposed. Such a fine is called negotiable and is considered the most severe pecuniary penalty under the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. The exact amount of the fine will be determined in the course of an administrative investigation.
Now Apple has issued yet another injunction to eliminate competition law violations. You have 60 days to complete it.
The imposition of unfavorable conditions was expressed in the following, according to the FAS:
- There is a clause in the App Store Review Guidelines that prohibits developers from inducing app users to pay for goods using a method other than built into the app itself. The prohibition also applies to the provision of information, that is, even posting information about the possibility of paying for purchases on the official website will be a violation of this clause;
- Failure to comply with this restriction results in Apple denying the app access to the Apple Store.
Based on this, the FAS believes that the company imposes on iOS application developers the use of only certain payment methods (through the application), which objectively worsens the functionality and is unprofitable for application developers, in addition, may lead to a restriction in the turnover of goods.
Now Apple is instructed to remove this item from the Guidelines within 60 days and stop thus imposing unfavorable conditions on developers of applications in the iOS operating system.
This violation was revealed in the activities of the American company last fall. Even then, the FAS issued a similar order to Apple, which had to be completed by September 30. Also, the case of abuse of dominance was considered in the spring of 2021, as a result, a fine of a little less than a billion rubles was imposed. The company tried to challenge it in court, but lost.
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