Apple is now facing yet another antitrust investigation, adding to those already under way in the US and Europe.

The latest one is in Russia, and while the investigation is new, the controversy isn’t — relating to the way that Apple handles third-party parental control apps…

As Reuters explains, the accusation is that Apple is limiting competition for one of its own apps, Screen Time.

The controversy began in the US in 2018, when Apple started clamping down on third-party parental control apps. Several of them were removed from the App Store, while others had updates refused.

Watchdog FAS said it was investigating why a new version of Kaspersky Lab’s Safe Kids application had been declined by Apple’s operating system, resulting in a significant loss in functionality for the parental control app.

Apple appeared to have doubled down on the issue earlier this year.

That led to two app developers filing complaints in Europe, and Kaspersky Lab doing the same in Russia. It is the Kaspersky complaint that has finally led to the opening of a formal antitrust investigation.

The report details that over the past year, Apple has “removed or restricted” at least 11 of the 17 most popular screen time and parental control applications on the App Store. In some cases, the apps were completely removed from the App Store, while some developers were forced to remove key features.

Apple responded by explaining that the third-party apps were breaking App Store rules by using Mobile Device Management systems intended for enterprise use. The company said at the time that this was dangerous, as MDM is a powerful tool that allows significant control over a user’s device. That, said the company, was what prompted the decision to crack down on apps misusing it.

Phil Schiller, SVP of worldwide marketing at Apple, later went further.

However, “father of the iPod” Tony Fadell said that Apple’s suggested approach was wildly impractical, and that it should instead offer an official API that provides developers the data they need in a way that protects user privacy. Apple has not yet chosen to do this. Whether yet another antitrust investigation will persuade the Cupertino, California, company to look again at this proposal remains to be seen.

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