The antimonopoly agency acted on a complaint from the Kaspersky Labs.

The American tech giant Apple paid this week a fine amounting to almost 1.2 billion Russian rubles (some 12.5 million euros or 13.6 million US dollars) for the repeated violation of Russia’s antitrust law. 

Apple had reportedly denied developers of iOS apps from letting users know that they could pay for purchases outside the AppStore. It also demanded that developers deleted the links to their own websites from their apps, the Federal Antimonopoly Service specified.

Apple opened up the alternative in-app payment solutions for iOS and iPadOS for all developers in October 2023, instituting a fee of 27% for alternative processing services.

Inserting links of developers’ websites is only allowed for Russia.

More to read:
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This is the second time during the past 12 months when Apple pays a major fine in Russia. In February 2923, it transferred to Moscow 906 million rubles, acting on a complaint from the Kaspersky Labs, an international online security firm founded in Russia, according to Kommersant. 

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