Apple's stance has been completely consistent. They comply with the law while making their ethical beliefs and stance as a company clear where they disagree with it.
What do you suggest Apple should do instead of comply with the law? Require it's employees to incriminate themselves?
I agree, and you can also tell that Apple is on the right side of this because of that FBI phone unlocking case. Apple fought the government tooth and nail, and they made it literally impossible to do for later models of phones. That whole incident really impressed me.
Of the "giant evil megacorporations that will dominate our cyberpunk future", I think Apple has slightly more moral sense and backbone compared to Google and Facebook. Not much, but it's something.
That's an interesting view, considering all the outrage on this site related to Google potentially entering the Chinese market under their law. It was deemed utterly immoral... and Apple gets a free pass although their own CEO it talking about human rights?
You are either utterly uniformed or intentionally misleading. Apple located the data center in China, as Chinese law requires while maintaining the same encryption standards they have for all of their customers. Google was collaborating with China in creating a censorial search engine behind the great firewall. Completely different things.
How is that any different? Google isn't doing anything different from any other search engine in China. Of course, they're collaborating with China, just like Apple in order to build a data center there.
Apple is complying to local standards while keeping their own moral standards. Google is making a moral compromise to work for the CPC. It would be comparable if Apple rolled out a chinese version of iCloud for which the CPC has the keys, which is not the case. By the way, when the Apple situation was reported, I was (and still am) critical of it, because it sets a bad precedent. But spreading misinformation in a forum where people are supposed to know better is not acceptable.
Please explain how are those two different things? Apple built a datacenter and gave keys to Chinese government to comply with law. Google is looking at (not even deploying!) a search engine that would comply with Chinese law and deploy it in China.
How do you think those things are different? Especially since Google did not deploy anything yet, while Apple gave up on the "human right" and handed over the keys?
Google is building surveillance and personal information harvesting systems designed to minimise individual privacy and maximise government control. It’s unavoidable because Google’s systems are based on the fundamental principle of gathering and analysing as much information about people and their behaviour as possible.
Apple have bent over backwards to ensure they themselves, and anyone in their data centres, have as little personal information about their customers as possible. FaceID and TouchID don’t Store face scans, only secure hashes of the data and only in an inaccessible local data store. AI analysis of most user data and activities is done locally on the device, pulling down reference data from the cloud as necessary rather than pushing the user data up. User activity data is protected by powerful new anonymising techniques. User personal data that is stored centrally e.g. for syncing, is encrypted end to end wherever possible so it’s only accessible to the user.
I’m not saying they store no unencrypted user data centrally or know nothing about user activities, but they have gone to crazily extreme lengths to avoid it. When law enforcement has gone to Apple with warrants to get user data or open up user phones, Apple has often been able to honestly say it has squat.
A lot of people here know all this and are just taking it into account, that’s all.
I mean, it's just my view, I don't speak for anyone else, much less "this site". I personally don't think it's realistic to require these companies to totally stay out of the Chinese market, that's just not going to happen.
they fought the govt where the only headlines would be positive. look at all the privacy features they're giving to Chinese citizens who actually need them. instead they literally gave the keys to everything to the Chinese government
Nope, he does the opposite. Here is his own words from a Chinese conference.
“The theme of this conference -- developing a digital economy for openness and shared benefits -- is a vision we at Apple share,” Cook said. “We are proud to have worked alongside many of our partners in China to help build a community that will join a common future in cyberspace."
What do you suggest Apple should do instead of comply with the law? Require it's employees to incriminate themselves?
I'm not the GP but I've seen this exact form of complaint many times. I think the usual response is "stop doing business in China." I don't know how that's supposed to work, though, since Chinese companies make all of Apple's hardware.
The phase of iPhone manufacture that’s done in China involves screwdrivers and glue, not high-tech fabs. It could be done elsewhere for a smaller price increase than you might expect.
I read somewhere that the issue is (for almost all electronics manufacturers) that all of those hi-tech fabs are also physically located in China, so you save a great deal of money and time.
Sacrifices for what, though? Let's say Apple does take a stand against China's human rights record. Then what? Apple pulls out of the country and a Chinese company fills the void in the market, possibly handing over even more user data to the government. What has been accomplished by Apple's "sacrifice"?
Apple customers elsewhere in the world are assured of Apple's integrity in this regard.
Of course, it is a bit unreasonable to expect Apple to actually do that, but it is also a bit unreasonable to believe that Apple will guard your privacy anywhere else when push comes to shove.
Apple is not a human being, it is a company. That means expecting it to have integrity the way you would a person will only lead to disappointment.
A better way to understand the actions of a company is to look at incentives. Apple does not have a huge incentive to collect and monetize user data the way Google and Facebook do. Therefore, Apple has an incentive to try to differentiate their product based on this fact. That's all that is going on here, morality does not enter into the picture.
How does sourcing in China require you to sell to the Chinese market? I don't see how Apple could be compelled to open their iCloud to the Chinese government if they're not operating iCloud in China and don't directly have Chinese customers.
China requires that the services be operated from within China and requires government access to the data centres.
I suspect this is one of the driving forces behind Apples efforts to do as much AI Balts is on the device, and employ encryption and advanced anonymising methods on data that is transmitted to the back end.
Yes, as I said, sourcing from China doesn't mean you have to sell your products in the Chinese market. If the only way to be an iCloud user in China is to trick Apple into thinking you're not in China, Apple can't recognise Chinese users and thus can't help the government spy on them.
Apple presumably doesn't provide iCloud in markets that the US has a trade embargo against, so why wouldn't they voluntarily abstain from providing it in China where it's not possible to provide the service without co-operating with the Chinese government to subvert their users' privacy.
I'm not saying that Apple should do this. I'm saying that it's dishonest to claim Apple's hands are tied. Unless the Chinese government is using the supply chain as leverage to force Apple to provide it access regardless of whether or not Apple intends to provide services in China, whether Apple is using China as supplier or not is irrelevant.
What do you suggest Apple should do instead of comply with the law? Require it's employees to incriminate themselves?