Apple states that a “concrete reason or a legal requirement” is necessary for the tech titan to comply with the directive from the Indian government and remove betting apps from its App Store.
What Happened? Per an Economic Times report, while Apple hasn’t refused to comply with the February order from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), the tech giant asserts that it can’t “arbitrarily” remove these betting apps and make them unavailable in India.
Apple argues that since these betting apps are legal in other countries, removing them in India poses a challenge.
Following MeitY’s release of a list of 138 barred gaming and betting applications in March, Apple representatives met with IT officials. Apple said it is currently “vetting” these apps to ensure that only “wrong or bad players” get taken down.
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As an immediate measure, Apple has removed some apps banned by the IT ministry in February, while working on a suitable solution for others.
New gaming regulations, introduced in April, aim to protect online gamers from harmful content and addiction and ban games that involve real wagering or betting with real money. Consequently, ministry officials have again asked Apple to ensure no apps allowing betting or wagering are available on its App Store.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, stated that the government will establish several self-regulatory organizations (SROs) to approve games that comply with these rules for operation in India.
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