Apple complies with China’s rules again, pulls gambling apps from App Store

Enlarge / A customer inspects the 2013 iPhone at the Wangfujing flagship store in Beijing. (credit: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

Apple removed thousands of gambling apps from China's App Store after the company came under fire from state-run media. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, the tech giant removed as many as 25,000 illegal gambling apps, many of which were disguised as official lottery apps, from China's App Store after China Central Television criticized the company for not doing more to catch and remove banned content.

"Gambling apps are illegal and not allowed on the App Store in China," Apple said in an emailed statement to The Wall Street Journal. "We have already removed many apps and developers for trying to distribute illegal gambling apps on our App Store, and we are vigilant in our efforts to find these and stop them from being on the App Store."

While Apple occasionally cleans up its App Stores to remove spam apps and content, this recent situation shows another way that the company has bent to the rules of the Chinese government. Last year, Apple removed VPN apps from its Chinese App Store after the local government banned services that were not already approved by the state. VPN apps allowed Chinese users to bypass the Great Firewall to get uncensored access to blocked websites.

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