After China, Apple also removing VPN apps from App Store in India

this Chinese Government forced apple delete VPN Application from app store Back in 2017, the company now has to do the same thing India.

So far, a handful of VPN apps have been removed to comply with antitrust lawsprivacy Anonymous use is prohibited by law, but more people may follow…

China removes hundreds of VPN apps

The Chinese government has long banned the use of VPN apps, which many citizens use to evade government surveillance of their online activities.

Back in 2017, Apple was forced to Remove hundreds of VPN apps CEO Tim Cook said at the time that the company had to reluctantly comply with the law.

Obviously, we don’t want to remove these apps, but just like we do in other countries, we comply with the law wherever we do business. We believe in participating in the market and delivering benefits to our clients. We hope that over time, the restrictions we see will ease.

India’s first VPN apps removed

India introduced a new law back in 2022 that effectively bans the anonymous use of VPNs and outlaws things like NorthVPN No logs of customer activity are maintained.

Implementation was delayed due to numerous objections and was subsequently proposed but not implemented. But now enforcement has begun TechCrunch According to reports, Apple has begun removing VPN apps from the Indian App Store.

The rules require VPN providers and cloud service providers to maintain comprehensive records of their customers, including names, addresses, IP addresses and transaction records, for five years.

TechCrunch has learned that more than half a dozen VPN apps, including Cloudflare’s widely used 1.1.1.1, have been removed from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in India following intervention by government authorities.

India’s Ministry of Home Affairs issued takedown orders against the apps, according to a document reviewed by TechCrunch and information disclosed by Google to Lumen, a Harvard University database that tracks deletion requests from governments around the world.

The government appears to be identifying non-compliant apps individually, so the process will likely be a lengthy one, but the end result could be similar to China, where hundreds of apps were removed. No respectable VPN app will comply with this law.

9to5Mac’s Opinion

This obviously goes against Apple’s privacy values, but the company is in a win-win situation. It must comply with local laws in every country in which it operates, even where repressive governments enact regressive legislation.

While in theory it could take the moral high ground and withdraw from these markets, the fact that China is its main manufacturing hub and India has grown to be its second largest means that this is simply not a practical option.

photography: Chris Young exist Not splashed