Apple takes stand against Russia: bans sales & limits functionality
Apple Stops Sales in Russia—and Takes a Rare Stand, Wired, 1 March 2022
Company joins the chorus of tech giants pushing back against Russian aggression. It said it was pausing all product sales and limiting the functionality of some of its services in Russia in response to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. iPhones and other Apple products are currently not being sold through Apple Stores in Russia, and Apple Pay and other services have been limited.
The company has also removed Russian news apps—including the app for the Kremlin-backed news services Russia Today and Sputnik—from its App Stores in countries outside of Russia and said it has disabled traffic patterns and live incident reports in Apple Maps in Ukraine in order to deter the tracking of Ukrainians’ movements...
Apple’s move is particularly notable given the high visibility of its products and the outsized influence it wields as a tech industry leader...
Tyson Barker, head of the Technology and Foreign Policy Program at the German Council on Foreign Relations, says that because the company has played nice with Russian authorities in the recent past, Apple’s move to cut off access to its products in Russia is notable...
At the time of publication, Apple had not responded to inquiries from WIRED about its decision to limit or block its products and services...