GoKawiilReuters reports that Russia’s antitrust regulator has opened a formal case against Apple over the company’s failure to preinstall the state-backed MAX messenger and Russia’s RuStore app marketplace on its devices. Here are the details.
Russia opens antitrust proceedings against Apple
Since 2019, when Russia passed a law requiring device makers to offer domestic apps on products sold in the country, Apple and Russian authorities have been locked in a slow-boiling battle.
In 2021, when the law went into effect, Apple reached an arrangement under which users setting up a new iPhone in Russia would be shown a list of recommended Russian-developed apps, rather than having them installed automatically.
In March 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, Apple halted product sales and exports to the country and removed the RT News and Sputnik News apps from App Stores outside Russia. That September, Apple also removed several apps belonging to Russian technology company VK, citing British sanctions.
Last year, Russia began requiring the state-backed MAX messenger to be preinstalled on all new smartphones and tablets sold in the country, while also extending its mandatory RuStore app marketplace requirement to Apple devices. Apple did not comply with either requirement.
Tensions escalated further in June, when Apple removed MAX from the Russian App Store, followed later that month by several other VK-developed apps. Apple said the removals were required to comply with sanctions.
This prompted Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service to order the company to address what it described as discriminatory treatment of domestic software by July 15. Apple reportedly partially complied by allowing a Russian search engine to be preinstalled on iOS 26.6, but it did not implement the requirements related to MAX and RuStore.
Now, as reported by Reuters, Russia has opened a formal antitrust case against Apple after the company failed to fully comply with that warning.
From the report:
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