Russia forces Apple to remove VPN apps from the App Store

AppleInsider

Apple has caved to pressure from Russian authorities and removed a number of the best iPhone VPN apps from the App Store in the country.

Moscow at night (Credit: Evgenit/Pixabay)

Apple's App Store team has been notifying VPN developers that their apps are being removed "per demand from Roskomnadzor." This the state media watchdog that previously forced both Apple and Google to remove a political app backed by the leader of the country's opposition.

According to the Moscow Times, the Roskomnadzor regulator based its demand on how the apps include "content that is illegal in Russia." It also reports that this demand to remove mobile apps follows the regulator's increasing blocking of VPN services.

Details of Apple's App Store notifications come from emails sent to two VPN developers. According to Reuters, however, as many as 25 such firms have now had their apps removed.

Reportedly, VPN usage increased dramatically in Russia following the start of the war with Ukraine. At that point, Russian authorities blocked access to a number of Western social media sites.

Virtual Private Networks are intended to encrypt a user's data for security reasons, but they have the added benefit that they disguise where a user is. So, using one of the services, location can't be tracked by the government. Once set up on an iPhone, the user can therefore bypass local -- on in this case, country-wide -- restrictions on sites.



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rob53

At this point, Apple needs to stop selling anything in Russia. Let Russia try and make their own computing devices. There are plenty of honest people in Russia but until their crazy people in charge are no longer there, it's not worth the minor amount of money Apple makes in Russia. Hopefully, the USA doesn't follow Russia's lead because if they do, I'll be looking for another country to live in and I see Apple and a lot of other companies doing the same thing. 

seanj

rob53 said:

At this point, Apple needs to stop selling anything in Russia.

Given Western sanctions I would hope that Apple isn’t selling anything in Russia.

Even without these, I would hope Apple’s lauded ethics would mean it would stop selling in Russia of its own volition.
I imagine Apple has caved so that its existing users in Russia don’t have their access to the App Store and Apple software updates blocked by the Russian authorities.

ilarynx

rob53 said:

At this point, Apple needs to stop selling anything in Russia. Let Russia try and make their own computing devices. 

I, for one, think it might be interesting to see a Russian-built, diesel-powered, pull-start iPhonesky. 

diman80

seanj said:

rob53 said:

At this point, Apple needs to stop selling anything in Russia.

Given Western sanctions I would hope that Apple isn’t selling anything in Russia.

Even without these, I would hope Apple’s lauded ethics would mean it would stop selling in Russia of its own volition.
I imagine Apple has caved so that its existing users in Russia don’t have their access to the App Store and Apple software updates blocked by the Russian authorities.

You just don't understand their mentality, and it causes more losses for Apple than for the Russian authorities.

Your suggestion may work on a (Western) consumer, who typically associates their quality of life with the government and refers to different periods by saying "it was under this or that President or Prime Minister." You would just make the majority of Russian people angrier with Apple and other brands, not with their government, and they would become more united and stronger and Apple would have hard time recovering their business once it is over.

danox

What took the Russians so long to close the VPN loophole.......?

danox

rob53 said:

At this point, Apple needs to stop selling anything in Russia. 

Why? Let the local government tell you to get out be it Russia, China, or the EU. Individual human people are Apples customers in the end and government can't stand it. Useful very good tools/devices across the world get used by people irregardless of its nationality.

ranson

Situations like this, along with what went on in China during their mass Covid protests, are precisely why Apple needs to give up on its quest to prohibit sideloading. If an app is not being used to harm others, let the people install it.

StrangeDays

As a terrorist state and one which rapes and murders civilians in neighboring countries, and has come at Apple, I’d given them the big ole bird. 

mark fearing

‘Caved’ is a very weird way to express a company doing what is mandated by a government in another part of the world.

Do you ‘cave’ when you drive the speed limit?

Do we ‘cave’ when we hook our water system to a city system or build a septic instead of just spewing waste into the ditch next door?

danox

StrangeDays said:

As a terrorist state and one which rapes and murders civilians in neighboring countries, and has come at Apple, I’d given them the big ole bird. 

The Orange one might win on Nov. 5 2024 I guess that means you are going to explode on that date, because 1/3 of the American Republicans currently love Putin including the Orange one.

22july2013

rob53 said:

At this point, Apple needs to stop selling anything in Russia. Let Russia try and make their own computing devices. There are plenty of honest people in Russia but until their crazy people in charge are no longer there, it's not worth the minor amount of money Apple makes in Russia. Hopefully, the USA doesn't follow Russia's lead because if they do, I'll be looking for another country to live in and I see Apple and a lot of other companies doing the same thing. 

But from your silence I guess you are okay with Apple doing business in China, which the UN says is committing genocide.

When you say "Hopefully the US doesn't follow Russia's lead" I can't tell what you are talking about. Invading other countries? Which countries do you think Biden is about to invade?

sconosciuto

StrangeDays said:

As a terrorist state and one which rapes and murders civilians in neighboring countries, and has come at Apple, I’d given them the big ole bird. 

No wonder MAGA Republicans have such a hard-on for Putin. #birdsofafeather

sconosciuto

danox said:

StrangeDays said:

As a terrorist state and one which rapes and murders civilians in neighboring countries, and has come at Apple, I’d given them the big ole bird. 

The Orange one might win on Nov. 5 2024 I guess that means you are going to explode on that date, because 1/3 of the American Republicans currently love Putin including the Orange one.

#2ndAmendmentRemedies #theonlygoodfascists

Calamander

ranson said:

Situations like this, along with what went on in China during their mass Covid protests, are precisely why Apple needs to give up on its quest to prohibit sideloading. If an app is not being used to harm others, let the people install it.

Finally a sensible comment. 

The game dynamics of Apple's app store right now is the worst of all worlds - any government in the world can force Apple into removing apps from the app store, and regimes from China, to Russia, to the USA have all been using that to get apps banned that their people wanted to use. 

In the USA that is unconstitutional, but it happens anyway - TikTok for example. One can debate the merits of that ban but the same can be said for China banning Google and Facebook - there is no difference. Normal people are worse off for it.. 

Apple was founded by Steve Jobs on a basic humanitarian principle - to empower humans to be more creative, to have more information, to be free. Steve jobs initially said that the App store controls were in place to protect people's "freedom from porn" - while that was an OK idea at the time, he did not foresee that Apple would then in the future have to kowtow to any government anywhere in the world. 

The solution is allowing side loading - not because side loading is great, but because fewer governments will even try to remove apps from the app store since there is an alternative that creative people will switch to in no time, and when there's market demand, the side loading services would professionalize instantly and make downloading a VPN app as simple as clicking a link. 

Apple needs to give up its iron fist control of the app store to make the world a better place. This is 2024. 

PS: An even better idea I suggested to Tim Cook way back when would be to have a fully decentralzied app store, with decentralized review system and blockchain backing - an unstoppable app store which is still secure, or even more secure from scams than the current app store because of a decentralized review system. 

killroy

rob53 said:

At this point, Apple needs to stop selling anything in Russia. Let Russia try and make their own computing devices. There are plenty of honest people in Russia but until their crazy people in charge are no longer there, it's not worth the minor amount of money Apple makes in Russia. Hopefully, the USA doesn't follow Russia's lead because if they do, I'll be looking for another country to live in and I see Apple and a lot of other companies doing the same thing. 

That's assuming that Russians are using iPhones bought in Russia, and not outside Russia.

avon b7

22july2013 said:

rob53 said:

At this point, Apple needs to stop selling anything in Russia. Let Russia try and make their own computing devices. There are plenty of honest people in Russia but until their crazy people in charge are no longer there, it's not worth the minor amount of money Apple makes in Russia. Hopefully, the USA doesn't follow Russia's lead because if they do, I'll be looking for another country to live in and I see Apple and a lot of other companies doing the same thing. 

But from your silence I guess you are okay with Apple doing business in China, which the UN says is committing genocide.

When you say "Hopefully the US doesn't follow Russia's lead" I can't tell what you are talking about. Invading other countries? Which countries do you think Biden is about to invade?

Did the UN say that?

These are very prickly pear situations and complex in nature. 

An example:

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/05/china-un-expert-says-unilateral-sanctions-must-not-be-used-foreign-policy

If Apple were to pull out of Russia, China would fill the gap. It's actually doing that now. So would governments representing 88% of the world's population. 

Currently it has 'paused' sales and removed Russian government controlled news apps from the App Store outside Russia. 

How did US 'ally' India become the world's number importer of Russian oil under sanctions propelled by the US?

Sanctions can only ever work if they are widely supported. Biden said he 'controls the world' but the reality is very different. Sanctions aren't widely supported. 

I criticise Apple for trying to claim it has 'values' while not actually defining them in any way because there are things that are better not said. 

However, on a purely business level (which is where Apple should be swimming) I'll give it some slack given the complicated nature of the issues. 

Putin won't be around forever and then what? 

Apple just has to comply with whatever laws are in place and try to mitigate the impact. A common sense approach, and if you feel so strongly about it you can always choose to pass on Apple products as a way of protest.