A Russian court has fined tech giant Apple 800,000 rubles ($8,915 or Rs 7.41 lakh) for refusing to remove Adolf Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' from its Apple Books application. According to Russian news agency TASS, the fine was handed over after a closed-door hearing at the Tagansky District Court of Moscow. Apple had requested that the case be heard in private in order to safeguard trade secrets, the agency further said in its report on Tuesday. The distribution of 'Mein Kampf' is outlawed in Russia since 2010, after a court deemed it extremist. But it is still available on Apple Books.
"The court decided to find Apple Distribution International guilty of an offense under Part 2 of Article 13.41 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation (failure of the owner of a website to delete information or a web-page when the obligation to delete such information, such a web page, is included in the legislation of the Russian Federation) and impose a penalty on this entity in the form of a fine in the amount of 800,000 rubles," the judge said in the judgement, as per TASS.
Russia Today (RT) said this is not the first time that a fine has been imposed on Apple in Russia. On Monday, it was revealed that the company paid an antitrust fine of about 1.2 billion rubles ($13.4 million) for forcing Russian iOS application developers to use Apple's payment instrument.
The case dates back to July 2022 when Apple banned developers from informing customers about purchase options outside its App Store.
In August 2023, another Russian court had fined Apple 400,000 rubles ($4,466) for refusing to remove false information about the Russia-Ukraine war (which the Russian government calls "special military operation") from two podcast websites.
