OREANDA-NEWS. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has launched an investigation against Apple in connection with its actions in the distribution market for applications for iOS, the agency said.

The case was opened on the grounds of violation of the law on protection of competition. The reason was the statement of Kaspersky Lab. The company complained that Apple unreasonably rejected the version of the parental control program Kaspersky Safe Kids (KSK), due to which "the next version of KSK lost a significant part of the functionality".

At the same time, the statement said, Apple introduced on iOS12 its own Screen Time application, the capabilities of which coincide with those for parental control. FAS also cited media reports according to which similar applications of 11 more developers around the world were rejected or their functionality was limited by Apple after the launch of Screen Time. The agency concluded that the corporation’s actions “contain signs of abuse of a dominant position” in the iOS application market. The FAS has scheduled a hearing on September 13th.

The FAS report also notes that, for similar reasons, the Ukrainian developer Kidslox and the Spanish Qustodio complained about Apple to the European Commission. Another 19 developers intend to require the corporation to develop a technical solution that would allow them to continue working on iOS devices.

Kaspersky Lab filed a complaint against the corporation in March. Apple demanded to remove from the KSK application two functions that didn't comply with the placement rules in the AppStore. The Laboratory said that Apple does not allow "other developers to compete on an equal footing", and added that they tried to resolve the situation, but "constructive negotiations did not work out".