Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) said it had fined Apple 906.3 million roubles (US$12 million) for alleged abuse of its dominance in the mobile applications market, in the latest dispute between Moscow and a Western technology firm.
FAS said on Tuesday that U.S. tech giant Apple’s distribution of apps through its iOS operating system gave its own products a competitive advantage.
Apple said it “respectfully disagreed” with the FAS ruling and that it would appeal it.
FAS determined in August 2020 that Apple had abused its dominant position and then issued a directive requiring the U.S. company to remove provisions giving it the right to reject third-party apps from its App Store.
“We worked with Kaspersky to get their app in compliance with rules that were put in place to protect children,” Apple said in a statement. “They now have 13 apps on the App Store and we have processed hundreds of updates for them.”
MacDailyNews Take: The operative term here is “Apple’s.” Possessive, Russia.
It’s Apple’s App Store and Apple’s platform, so Apple sets the policies.
Again, Apple doesn’t have a monopoly in smartphones. Without a monopoly, there simply cannot be monopoly abuse.
Worldwide Mobile Operating System market share (StatCounter, March 2021):
• Android: 71.83%
• iOS: 27.41%
I don’t think anybody reasonable is going to come to the conclusion that Apple is a monopoly. Our share is much more modest. We don’t have a dominant position in any market… We are not a monopoly. — Apple CEO Tim Cook, June 2019