Apple's legal team seems to be very busy lately, since the legal battles don't stop. We recently heard about her treatment which was filed by Epic Games for company policies in the App Store. There is still one from the European Commission for tax arrears.
The last acccase on that Apple list is also a lawsuit filed by the Russian antitrust authority over the company's monopolistic practices with iOS 12.
Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) investigated Kaspersky Lab's allegations of disruption access to some developer APIs and hosting ambiguous documents with the release of iOS 12 – which contained Screen Time – in 2018.
This led to many apps, including Kaspersky's parental control app, losing functionality, while Apple's Screen Time app continued to uses iOS features that were no longer available to third-party developers.
Following an investigation by FAS Russia, found that Apple is guilty for abusing its market position.
A statement (translated) by FAS Russia states:
The company documents, which guide developers, contain ambiguous provisions, as well as provisions under which Apple may reject (prevent) any third-party application from its App Store, even if it meets all of the company's requirements.
After a thorough investigation of the documentation and technological features of iOS and applications, evaluating the actions of Apple, the Commission of FAS Russia concluded that the company had abused its dominant position in the market of distribution of mobile applications on the operating system iOS.
Shortly afterwards, FAS Russia issued a correction order requiring Apple to remove any ambiguity from its documentation, which currently entitles it to reject applications for any reason, even if they meet all the requirements.
In addition, he ordered the Cupertino-based company to ensure that Apple applications do not override third-party applications and that developers can continue to create parental control applications and distribute them through the App Store without interfering with important Apple features. .
Apple has until November 30, 2020 to comply with this order. It must also notify FAS Russia of any changes it has made within five days of their implementation.
