Russian cyber security company Kaspersky Lab has today lodged an antitrust complaint with Russian governments against Apple in relation to its official App Store’s monopoly on the OS maker. Apple uses its power over the App Store and the entire iOS app environment to get engineers to remove two features from the Kaspersky Safe Kids iOS app–namely app control and Safari browser blocking. The company argues that Apple has done so to eliminate the “screen time” feature the OS maker put into iOS 12 last September. — Fabio Assolini (@assolini) February 22, 2016 In a blog post published today, Kaspersky said other app makers, such as AdGuard and Kidslox, had also lost their ability to limit app access after Apple interventions. Moreover, the Russian company claims that Apple is engaged in a concerted effort to crack down, delete or reject any third-party screen time apps that compete with integratediOS features. “By setting its own channel rules,[ Apple] has expanded its market power over other neighboring markets, for example parental control software, which has become a player,” said Kaspersky Lab. “Exactly by extending its leverage over other segments to so-called’ key capacity,’ which leads to competition restriction and elimination, we can see the essential components of anti-trustee breaches, which involve erection of barriers and discrimination against our software,” added the antivirus manufacturer. “We have repeatedly tried to contact Apple to resolve this, but there have been no significant negotiations.” Kaspersky filed his complaint in Russia and only in Russia, but not in the European Union. The Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia (FAS).
The antivirus manufacturer recognized the similar efforts of Spotify in the EU. Last week, a similar antitrust complaint was lodged against Apple by the music streaming services for their strict control over the App Store. Spotify alleged that Apple had used unfair App Store taxes to curb the development of Spotify and other Apple’s own music service competitors–Apple Music. Apple has published a blog post replying to the EU Spotify complaint, but an Apple spokesperson today did not submit a request for comment on Kaspersky’s complaint. This is not the first time Kaspersky Lab has filed antitrust complaints against a Silicon Valley tech giant. The company lodged an antitrust complaint in Russia and the EU in November 2016 against Microsoft. The antivirus maker argued that after a major Windows 10 update Microsoft made it unfairly difficult for antivirus providers to compete. After the Redmond-based OS maker reviewed his antivirus and update policies, Kaspersky dropped its complaints in August 2017 after reaching a common ground with Microsoft.
