The fight against abuse in digital markets will intensify

Maria Girich, researcher at the International Best Practices Analysis Department of the Gaidar Institute said that currently the main trend in regulating platform competition is to identify an increasing number of special anti-competitive practices that are formed through the use of data accumulated by platforms.

So, in February 2025, investigations continued against Apple in the UK in connection with abuses in the market of mobile browsers and cloud gaming, and in Germany in connection with the manipulation of consent forms for data collection for advertising purposes.

Russian approach

In February, a significant event in the field of regulation of digital economy took place in Russia, as well: the RF Ministry of Finance proposed to change the procedure for accreditation of IT companies in order to receive state support, for example, reduced tax rates (5% instead of 25%) and insurance premiums (7.6% instead of 30%), the study says.

As Maria Girich explains, special legislation has been adopted in Russia that defines the dominant position of platforms as follows: the share of transactions through the platform in terms of value should be more than 35% of the total volume of transactions on the market, and the platform’s revenue should exceed Rb2 bn per year. «The FAS has also identified a list of practices in digital markets that are considered abuse within the framework of the 2022 Principles of Interaction between Digital Market Participants," Maria Girich said.

Maria Girich added that, unlike the EU, the US, Germany and China, Russia does not have a list of specific antitrust practices for online platforms. However, Maria Girich noted that in 2015 the FAS of Russia conducted an investigation into abuses by Google Play, «when Yandex complained that manufacturers of Android phones refused to pre-install the Yandex. Kit operating system. Google limited the pre-installation of alternative applications in agreements with manufacturers," Maria Girich said.