Russia forces Apple to remove VPN apps from the App Store

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.

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.

16 Comments

rob53 3307 comments · 13 Years

About 4 months ago

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 322 comments · 16 Years

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 125 comments · 15 Years

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 38 comments · 7 Years

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.