The Apple Search Ads platform allows developers to promote their own apps and games for a fee by searching the App Store. It was announced at WWDC 2016, and was launched in the fall of that year.

The service is available in more than 50 countries, including the USA, Canada, UK, Ukraine, Germany and others. In Russia, the service was also available, but access to it was closed in November 2018 due to the new rules for paying “tax on Google”.

The new tax obliged foreign IT companies to pay VAT on sales in Russia of digital content, software, information storage and processing services, as well as domain registration and hosting. The law was adopted in 2017, and in 2018 amendments were made to it, which suggested that foreign companies should register with the tax authorities and pay VAT themselves on the services they provide to Russian organizations.

The developers, of course, were not very happy about Apple’s decision to close Search Ads – advertising costs increased, since they had to contact foreign agencies, and this is payment for advertising, service and commission.

And on April 26, Russia appeared in the updated terms of use of the Search Ads platform. According to Apple, about 70% of App Store visitors use internal store search, and 65% of downloads occur after the search.

The advertised applications and games are pinned at the very top of the search results and are marked with the “Advertising” icon. Importantly, the platform does not track users on their requests and prohibits targeting users under 18 years of age.