There's mounting pressure on Apple to start talking about and ultimately lower the 30 percent cut of every App Store app sale it grabs, but in Russia, Apple may soon been forced to lower its take.
As Reuters reports, a new bill has been submitted as draft legislation to Russia's lower house of parliament. The bill, by lawmaker Fedot Tumusov, wants to see the commission taken by app store owners limited to just 20 percent. The change would impact both Apple and Google's app stores, but any other that operate within Russia.
It sounds like a great move for app developers, but the bill goes further and stipulates that developers would be required to pay 30 percent of their app income to a special IT training fund. So rather than losing 30 percent to Apple, developers would be losing 50 percent in total—20 percent to Apple and 30 percent to this new training fund.
If the bill passes, it would surely see a large influx of cash into the training fund, but could also result in developers opting not to offer their apps to the Russian market in future. There's little incentive to if 50 percent of your app charge goes to other people. Alternatively, it could see app prices increase in Russia to compensate for the change. Apple also wouldn't be very happy, but there's little it could do if the bill passes into law.
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