The Russian anti-monopoly agency (Federal Antimonopoly Service – FAS) fined Apple USD 12 million or around IDR 173 billion for monopoly problems.
FAS began investigating Apple after receiving complaints from Kaspersky Lab in March 2019. According to the cybersecurity company, Apple forced to limit functionality in Kaspersky’s Safe Kids application, to be precise after Apple added the Screen Time feature in iOS 12. Ekonomi Rusia
This fine comes almost at the same time as the European Union’s move to impose similar penalties on Apple, which was based on a report from Spotify in March 2019 regarding a 30% discount from in-app purchases on the App Store.
According to Spotify, this gives an advantage over Apple’s song streaming service. A similar but not the same problem also occurs with other applications, such as Kidslox and Qustodio, both of which are parental control applications.
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In a statement, FAS ordered Apple to take steps to ensure that their application would compete fairly with other applications, as well as ensure that parental control application developers can distribute their software without feature restrictions. Berita politik dan ekonomi Rusia
However, Apple admits that it does not agree with the regulator’s decision and admits that it will appeal the decision, as quoted by detikINET from The Verge, Saturday (1/5/2021).
“We’ve been working with Kaspersky to ensure that their applications can comply with the rules designed to keep children safe,” said an Apple spokesman.
“Now they have 13 applications on the App Store and we have processed hundreds of their updates,” he added.
Previously, Apple argued that the feature limitation was done because they used Mobile Device Management (MDM) technology, which is actually intended for use by large companies who want to control their devices. Politik Rusia
According to Apple, the use of this technology for consumer-class applications is very risky because it could make the application hacked. Politik Indonesia