Column by Yuri Litvinenko about new facets of the old regulation of application pre-installation

On October 12, the government once again expanded the list of programs that must be preinstalled “from the factory” on phones sold in Russia. The list includes the “Honest Sign” application, which allows you to check data on goods from the traceability system of the same name. The news itself is not significant, but it once again shows that the original purpose of the list has noticeably transformed.

In 2018–2019, when the mandatory pre-installation of Russian software was just being discussed at the draft level, the idea was simple and understandable. Foreign holders of IT platforms (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung) supply equipment with their own set of programs and services. Competing Russian developments – browsers, antiviruses and online cinemas, according to the logic of regulation supporters, found themselves in unequal conditions in the struggle for users’ attention and money, since they had to be installed before use.

As a result, almost every component of the first version of the list of such applications, approved back in 2020, was the Russian equivalent of either system applications or programs usually installed under a contract with a vendor. For example, on Android phones, “Yandex Maps” was opposed to “Google Maps”, Mir Pay – Google Pay, etc. Now many of these foreign services have stopped working normally in the Russian Federation or at the will of their owners (for example, “Google Maps” stopped building public transport routes), or due to network blocking and the departure of international payment systems from Russia (Google Pay will no longer be able to pay for purchases).

In this situation, domestic services have gained a clear advantage over foreign competitors, and no pre-installation is needed for this. But it can be useful in the fight against Russian competitors.

“Honest Sign”, created by the operator of the Russian traceability system (CRPT), by its nature cannot have foreign competitors, especially those built into the system. But there are domestic ones, albeit unique ones. On a Russian’s phone, it will compete with the “State Services” application: in August it added the ability to scan codes, based on the same system.

However, even such competition can only be imagined based on the fact that the law on preinstallation is actually implemented in Russia. In conditions where a significant share of the market is formed by phones intended for other countries, this is doubtful. And the appearance of new players on the list looks more like a demonstration of lobbying capabilities than any serious commercial advantage.