Missed call: what will happen to Apple in case of non-compliance with the requirements of the Federal Antimonopoly Service

On July 15, the deadline set aside by the Federal Antimonopoly Service for Apple to comply with the requirements of Russian law expires. If the American corporation does not comply with the order, the next step may be to initiate an antimonopoly case and impose a revolving fine, experts told Izvestia. At the same time, experts believe that you should not be afraid of immediately blocking services or disabling the iPhone in the Russian Federation. In their opinion, the pressure on the company will increase gradually. How this may affect domestic users is described in the Izvestia article.

Why did the FAS issue a warning to Apple?

The expiration of the deadline set by the Federal Antimonopoly Service will not in itself lead to the automatic blocking of Apple services in Russia. The next possible stage will be the initiation of an antimonopoly case against the company and the imposition of a fine, said Mikhail Shurygin, chairman of the ROCIT commission on cloud technologies, hosting and information security.

— The probability of meeting the requirements of the American corporation is low. As you know, on July 1, the Federal Antimonopoly Service ordered to eliminate discrimination against Russian search engines and comply with the legislation on pre-installing domestic software on iOS devices. In particular, we are talking about the national messenger "Max" and the app store. The agency gave the company two weeks to do this, threatening to initiate an antimonopoly case and a fine of up to 4 billion rubles in case of refusal," Ilya Gogua, a journalist, blogger and creator of the AyTalk show, recalled.

According to him, the Russian market forms only a small part of Apple's global sales — about 3-4%. Therefore, the corporation, as a rule, makes decisions taking into account global economic and regulatory risks. In addition, she has repeatedly demonstrated her willingness to defend her interests for a long time in disputes with other market participants, even in the presence of court decisions. As an example, the expert cited a long-term conflict with Epic Games, in which the company did not return the Fortnite game to the App Store for a long time.

Apple's policy towards our users has long been determined not so much by commercial considerations as by American sanctions legislation, Mikhail Shurygin added.

— iPhone owners in Russia have already faced a number of restrictions: Apple Pay has stopped working, applications from Russian banks and companies are regularly disappearing, and the availability of individual services is decreasing. At the same time, the corporation itself is technically able to adapt to the requirements of individual states — for example, in the European Union, it was forced to open the possibility of installing alternative application stores. However, such changes occur only when they do not conflict with American laws," the expert explained.

Tightening the position of the FAS

At the same time, the fact of initiating a case is more important than the size of the sanctions, since it creates a legal basis for further interaction between the state and the global digital platform. A similar approach has already been applied to Google, Mikhail Shurygin said.

Experts recalled that at present, the amount of debt officially recorded by the court of the Russian division of Google (Google LLC) is more than 91.5 quintillion rubles, a number with 18 zeros. The company is in no hurry to comply with the court's demands and pay the fine even in installments. At the same time, as experts noted, no restrictive measures are being taken against Google — mail, search and other popular IT services are operating normally in the Russian Federation.

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Further tightening of the regulator's position looks likely. At the same time, the claims are addressed specifically to the corporation, and not to users of its devices, said Nikita Kulikov, CEO of the NGO PravoRobotov, Candidate of Law.

"Therefore, there are no risks for iPhone owners now — we can only talk about additional restrictions in the operation of individual services," he believes.

On July 14, users complained about problems accessing Google, GitHub, and Apple services. Roskomnadzor stated that they had not imposed restrictions on access to these resources. At the time of writing, the websites of all three companies continued to operate normally. Izvestia also sent a request to the FAS.

The probability of blocking

Against the background of restrictions around the apple ecosystem, the market for intermediary services also continues to grow. In recent months, the demand for replenishing Apple ID, paying for the App Store, renewing iCloud, changing the account region and installing unavailable applications has increased several times, said Vladimir Zykov, director of projects at ANO Digital Platforms.

— At the same time, the number of fraudulent schemes has increased. Users are offered to transfer Apple ID data, use someone else's accounts, or make an advance payment without any guarantees. In fact, a gray market has already formed around Apple services," he believes.

Its turnover is about 5 billion rubles a year, and the damage from fraudulent schemes is estimated at hundreds of millions of rubles. The reason is that users are forced to look for workarounds to pay for services, the expert said.

Experts interviewed by Izvestia agree that the scenario of a complete Apple lockout in Russia looks unlikely. Such a measure would affect millions of domestic users and would cause more problems for citizens than for the corporation itself. At the same time, the government is also not interested in actually depriving Russians of the opportunity to use their already purchased devices.