Russia's Anti-Monopoly Watchdog to Investigate Apple Following Antitrust Complaint

Apple is under investigation by Russia's anti-monopoly watchdog following a complaint from cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab that the company is abusing its dominant position in smartphone apps, Reuters reports this morning.

Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) says it is investigating why a new version of Kaspersky Lab's Safe Kids application has not been updated on the iOS App Store, resulting in "a significant loss in functionality for the app."

Back in March, Apple pulled Kaspersky Safe Kids app from the ‌App Store‌, prompting Kaspersky to file an antitrust complaint against Apple with the FAS.

Safe Kids allowed parents to specify which apps kids can run based on the ‌App Store‌'s age restrictions and let them hide browsers on their device so that web pages could only be accessed in the Kaspersky Safe Kids app's built-in secure browser.

Apple said it removed the app because it didn't meet its ‌App Store‌ guidelines, but Kaspersky argued that the app had already been in the ‌App Store‌ for three years and was only pulled because Apple had just released iOS 12 with its own Screen Time feature, which offers similar parental control functions.

Kaspersky's dispute has parallels with an antitrust complaint brought against Apple by Spotify earlier this year.

Spotify filed a complaint with the European Commission, arguing that the tech giant's ‌App Store‌ policy lets it act as "both a player and referee to deliberately disadvantage other app developers."

Apple responded by calling the complaint "misleading rhetoric" and argued that "Spotify wants all the benefits of a free app without being free."

Apple is also under investigation by the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) to decide whether the company is abusing its position in the ‌App Store‌ by, for example, giving preferential treatment to its own apps. Apple has said it is "confident" the probe "will confirm all developers have an equal opportunity to succeed in the ‌App Store‌."