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Most Amusing About Iran Sanctions And Apple Store Apps

This article is more than 6 years old.

There is a rich vein of rather dark comedy underlying this little story abut Apple removing Iranian apps from the Apple Store. The claimed reason is that the sanctions against Iran mean that Apple cannot host nor distribute such apps. But, of course, unless you're going to jailbreak an iPhone the only way you can get an app onto an iPhone is to get it from the iStore. A bit of what Terry Pratchett used to call an imp arse there. There's also the interesting point that if Apple does think this is illegal under said sanctions then what has it been doing all of these years?

As we've discussed around here a number of times trade sanctions are usually entirely counterproductive anyway, for they're usually about denying the import of various items. That of course only hurts the consumers in those places where the imports are unavailable. Thus we should be resolutely opposed to sillinesses like the US imposing tariffs upon Chinese goods in order to punish Chinese producers, just as one example. For the people who suffer are the American consumers from the absence of those imports.

The situation is quite different here of course, the aim of the American sanctions here is to punish the Iranians for some of the things their government has done. This isn't the nuclear sanctions by the way, this is the more general system of them. And as it's the Iranian consumer being damaged, hurt, here at least the sanctions are being aimed in the right direction. My own, entirely personal, belief is that we shouldn't be having such sanctions on trade but that's another matter. At least they're not aimed at the American consumer this time.

However, it's possible to still appreciate that humour here:

That has not stopped Iranians from snapping up millions of iPhones smuggled in from places like Dubai and Hong Kong. Nor has it kept Iranian app developers from creating thousands of apps for local users and offering them through App Stores outside Iran.

Now, Apple is moving aggressively to shut down Iranian apps. The crackdown here follows the company’s recent removal of apps in China that allowed residents to evade censors and gain access to the global internet, and were deemed illegal by the Chinese government.

The China point is entirely different of course. Apple should indeed obey Chinese law when operating in China. The Iranian experience is different, in that it is American law being applied to Iran--of course, Apple being an American company it should obey US law too. However, it could well be that Apple has its reading of the law wrong here:

The Office of Foreign Assets Control, the US Treasury Department’s financial intelligence watchdog says Apple is not prohibited from hosting Iranian applications.

In an unscrupulous move on August 19 Apple Inc. removed applications of several Iranian companies from its iOS App Store. In response to an Iranian developer’s inquiry on the matter in an official email seen by Financial Tribune, OFAC wrote:

Despite the lifting of some secondary sanctions as a result of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in general, the exportation by US persons of most items, technology, and services remains prohibited under the point 560.204 of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR).

However, the email further states, "Despite broad prohibitions, there are certain types of items and activities that US persons are authorized to engage in related to software and those categories of activities and items which can be found under the US Treasury’s General License D-1."

That licence can be read here. It doesn't say that "all apps" are allowed but the description is pretty wide. I'm glad to see that it covers the software I'll be introducing there soon enough at least--not that US sanctions affect me, I'm not an American.

So, that's one level of amusement, Apple seems to be reading the restrictions a bit, umm, restrictively. Then there's another level of this, as Eghtesad reports (disclosure, I write for a sister publication in Iran):

Telecommunication Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi says Apple should respect its Iranian consumers who are estimated in the upwards of 7 million.
“Eleven percent of Iran's mobile phone market share is owned by Apple. Giving respect to consumer rights is a principle today which Apple has not followed,” Jahromi tweeted on Friday.
“We will follow up the cutting of the apps legally,” he added.

The amusement there is that Iran itself has significant restrictions on what apps people may use, even which websites they may visit. Which I do indeed find that darkly amusing--the US sanctions expressly allow the sending of VPN software, the very thing which the Iranian regulations try to forbid. So, to have the Telecoms minister complaining about the US sanctions does indeed amuse me.

The usual complaint about trade sanctions is that they harm domestic consumers--the Iranian sanctions aren't doing that at least. However, Apple does seem to be reading the rules in a rather restrictive manner--and the Iranian telecoms minister complaining when he imposes much greater restrictions is amusing.