Yesterday, during the Apple event, the company, as always, kept talking about they value privacy, and how privacy is a “fundamental human right”. A noble statement, of course, but it seems Apple does not consider people from China, Belarus, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines to be “humans”, because fundamental, tent pole privacy features announced yesterday will not be available to the humans living in those countries.
Apple on Monday said a new “private relay” feature designed to obscure a user’s web browsing behavior from internet service providers and advertisers will not be available in China for regulatory reasons.
The feature was one of a number of privacy protections Apple announced at its annual software developer conference on Monday, the latest in a years-long effort by the company to cut down on the tracking of its users by advertisers and other third parties.
Privacy is a “fundamental human right”, but apparently not as fundamental as Apple’s right to make even more money.
Sounds very much like tor’s onion routing. I’d prefer the data not to go through apple at all to be honest, but as long as it’s all encrypted appropriately (such that apple can’t see any data), it should be ok. Is any of this open source though? If not that’s a problem. Also “third party operator” needs to be sufficiently independent from apple. Their contract should legally prohibit them from sharing information back with apple so that apple cannot request the data behind the scenes.
Regarding the national bans, it comes as no surprise that apple’s walled garden is being militarized by authoritarian regimes. Many of us predicted this years ago, and now that it’s reality the uncomfortable fact is that apple are complicit in aiding authoritarian governments enforce restrictions against owners.
Knowing this, people can still vote using their wallet. Not enough alternatives ? My fault ? There was at some point but people aggregated behind two major players. And now they complains.
Kochise,
Policy makers need to recognize that voting with one’s wallet is not effective against such concentrated markets.
> comes as no surprise that apple’s walled garden is being militarized by authoritarian regimes
Well, from Apple’s POV, it’s either 1) allow (probably) it’s walled garden to be militarized – by allowing whatever national security organ to access unencrypted and “un-onion-ified” internet traffic, or 2) country X will (probably) through Apple out all together. Darned if they do, darned if they don’t. (Am I still allowed to use the un-bowdlerized idiom by the WordPress filters?)
Interesting would be what if someone made a iOS Safari extension (if one can) that would automatically do the same thing using the Tor network. Ah, I see
Onion Browser does exist. Does China et al. block that?
Jimw338,
That’s the point. While tor is also officially blocked obviously, some users can and do use tor successfully in china using unofficial channels.
https://medium.com/@phoebecross/using-tor-in-china-1b84349925da
Apple’s walled garden brings the censorship to a user’s own device.
Alfman, you mean the countries listed are militarized regimes? I am from the Philippines.
AER,
They certainly can be militarized regimes, A military/police force gives the state control over people’s physical lives, but walled gardens enable them to extend control over people’s virtual lives as well. The great internet firewall was designed to do this too, but without restrictions on the devices themselves there are gaps in government’s censorship capabilities.
That makes the world, as America’s militarized zone as the United States have massive military camps all over the world.
What I failed to understand is that most countries have LAWS to abide with, and without Police and Military, it is impossible to uphold these laws. You can’t just install public courts without them having to ask the police to arrest someone after giving them the written permission to do so.
If that is the case, all countries in the world are militarized zones, with America being the unofficial world’s police as having full control of the world.
And so, if a local law has been implemented that will require a technology company to abide, what’s your problem with that? Unless those laws are unreasonable, but most laws are double-edged sword, as they can use for “JUSTIFIABLE” surveillance or being abused by the authorities. You can’t have one of this. It’s like selling a knife and dictates that you can only use this knife for cutting vegetables.
I beg my western friends to not bring their democratic biases to countries whose culture is so foreign to their own, so that we will not repeat the mess in the middle east.
AER,
You might argue we should fix our own problems first, and you’d have a point. But I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask us to look the other way on human rights abuses and totalitarian regimes that subjugate and persecute humans who just want basic freedoms. Totalitarian regimes will take freedoms away through both force and fear, letting it happen is a stain on humanity.
That requires an assumption that you have full knowledge of the “target” country that was being tagged as authoritarian. We are victims of these lies. You know, whatever works in the western media, they do it for their corporate sponsors, that might be politically biased. The Philippines was being targeted as some sort of an abusive regime, portrayed in media local and foreign as having killed 10,000 to 30,000 people in the course of three years for its war on illegal drugs in news paper sensationalized headlines! My goodness, They included petty crimes, that has no connection to the war on drugs whatsoever. We ask them, where are the names of that list? You know that narrative also came from “opposition” groups with political motives. And the worse is that narrative also came from the terrorist groups here so that our government might be pressured for “giving” in. We have insurgents here who turned into terror attacks (NPA / CPP / NDF) and they have “legal fronts” working in our congress, they have activists on the ground to hype up the narrative, without evidence. Then they reach out to ICC. And you, our western friends are so gullible to believe these lies, and then press the US congress to withhold any military aid just because of lies and repeated lies.
I know I am here living as a witness.
AER,
I accept your gripes, but this seems like a pivot to me. Who is this criticism in response to? Certainly not me as I have never talked about the Philippines and as far as I know Thom never has here on osnews either.
I just came across this article today…
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/06/10/president-donald-trump-justice-department-data-house-democrats/7650303002/
People should not be putting blind faith in any corporations to protect their privacy. It’s better to have 3rd party encryption software and services that the manufacturer & vendors themselves don’t have access to and cannot be compelled to divulge.
It always amazes me that Thom is shocked when a company has to comply with local laws in order to do business with that locality. Isn’t this the same person who complains about it when companies try and evade EU laws?
Rather than complaining about the fact that a business is obeying laws, perhaps more people should have the guts to speak out against China and the actions of the Chinese government?
The issue is more nuanced and complex (but certainly less attention grabbing and outrage-y) than Thom portrays for sure. Yes, there is some dishonestly in Apple’s messaging. However…
Is Apple supposed to cancel all iCloud in these countries accounts because they legally can’t offer the features they are now adding elsewhere? Perhaps they are supposed to violate the law and launch the features anyways.
If the US were to pass a law outlawing encryption on consumer devices, should Apple uproot itself and exit the US because what they said is a fundamental human right is now against the law?
And in the case of China more specifically, I’m curious what pulling out would accomplish? Sending everyone to a phone manufacturer with direct ties to the Chinese government? Removing additional cultural ties with the West?
We have a complex, globally integrated economy. These are real issues that are more complex than “Apple doesn’t think these people are human”, or “Apple is completely innocent and just following the law” on the other side.
that_guy,
Well, we need to consider that removing these apps from apple’s store would only be a mere inconvenience if not for the fact that apple holds a monopoly over what applications and features that iphone owners can install.
Of course I’m ok with apple offering it’s own onion routing network, but IMHO it’s extremely unethical that their policies are harming the competition that owners would otherwise be able to install and use. It’s entirely apple’s fault that things like the tor browsers don’t work well on IOS.
https://support.torproject.org/tormobile/tormobile-3/
China using apple’s restrictions against owners was inevitably going to happen. Apple’s walled garden is going to be increasingly used for governmental policing and oppression.
If Apple says “privacy is a nice thing to have”, there’s not much of an issue to strip the privacy features for certain regions. But when they tout privacy as “human right”, and then voluntarily deny those human rights from certain people basically based on nationality, then it’s hypocricy and even racism.
Racism? Has Apple forbidden black people from using this feature?
@sj87
I do agree. Apple seem to be all for human rights unless it impacts their board of management or sales channel. Human rights by definition may not be derogated nor sold. Tim Cook wouldn’t be the first to secure rights for himself then sit on his backside no matter how hard he waves the gay flag in peoples faces. It’s a shame he can’t see how he is being used and how this effects other people’s rights.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time travelling in many of those regions, they are not big markets for Apple. Those markets are dominated by Android, and even Blackberry still exceeds iPhone in some. But I’d say in most it’s Android at a ratio of at least 100:1 over iPhone, I suspect anyone claiming otherwise would be spinning.
I use multiple operating systems every day including Mac. I would call myself more of an OS/2 and Be (Haiku) fan than anything. I just happen to use Mac for more things because more things “just work” on Mac than anything else right now. If there is one operating system that can’t wait to stop using it is Windows at work. I retire in about seven years but if you didn’t know me in person but only on-line you might think I was in my twenties or thirties because I love new technology and use a LOT more and varied programs and operating systems than people I know personally.
With that said, Apple released very little that isn’t already out there in the world. Apple does have a way of taking “old” technology and doing it in a very different way that makes it easy and gets it out of the way so when I use *most* of it, it just works. I’d only give Macs a C+ but that is about what I would give Linux. I would give Windows a D to D- for all the hassles that it causes me day and day out, “It just breaks” would be the best slogan for Windows.
I spend too much time configuring Linux for anything different that comes out for it. I don’t have a lot of extra time so when I do switch operating systems I want it to work. I don’t care if I can configure it 500 different ways to show anything. I need to get work done and it takes more work to get things done than Mac but definitely less than Windows but the org I work for hates Mac and Linux because it is more dependable than Windows and IT props up Windows just to keep more than 700 of employed artificially swelling the ranks so that they (upper management) makes a lot more money. The more people that reports under them and the more they make the more the manager makes, it’s that simple.
PS: I’ve been using Linux since 1995/6. My shelf has more distros of Linux on it than a lot of people have lived in years. Distros that have come and gone including ones like Corel Linux (they used to have a version of WordPerfect for Linux – still do for UNIX I think) which is why I checked out that one but HTML wasn’t anywhere near what it needed to be to make an HTML version of “WordPerfect”. — Since when you could start downloading distros of Linux I have download at least 30 totally different “brands” of Linux. I’m looking for the “Mac of Linux” and just haven’t found what I’m looking for yet. When/IF that ever happens I will drop Mac. Did I mention that I’m tired of configuring new technology? It’s not for lack of skill but for lack of time. (I’ve also programmed in about 18 languages so I’ve got skills, okay? Not bragging, just fact.
OS/2 just runs and runs and runs for the types of things I use it for. BeOS/Haiku is absolutely **#*#*# fast for the things that it does. Maybe before I die I will be able to use it more than 5% of my day. Who knows.
As far as Apple catering to China and doing everything China wants. I would like Thom to tell me how he would mass produce hundreds of millions of his own brand (meaning with his name on them) and other physical products (hardware and software). Sure Apple could say FU to China and tell them they won’t sell anything in China that doesn’t follow Apple’s standards. But guess what. China right now, hopefully this will change soon (India?) could just tell Apple FU and stop letting Apple make their hardware products in China.
If Apple said FU then China would say FU and Apple would literally be out of business. I believe that Apple has little to no say right now. They are f’d when it comes to manufacturing their hardware in –volume– AND –quality–. No other country, not the U.S., nobody has the work force that has the skills and number of people that could make and assemble Apple products.
So instead of always blaming Apple for not guaranteeing everyone’s privacy, etc., please tell us Thom, exactly how should Apple keep doing business with China? Yes they could stop Apple products, software and hardware, in China. What would China do? What would their response be. I would love to know what Thom thinks about this. It’s easy to be an arm chair quarterback lobbing grenades as companies. So Thom, you are so smart. Please tell us how you would run Apple’s business in China and not get on their bad side enough that they don’t shutdown your plants or make it possible to build and ship products around the world? Please tell us how Apple doesn’t become a shell of the company it currently is? I would LOVE to know!
Sabon,
This is a much bigger problem than just apple, but I think we need to take a closer look at assertions suggesting that companies had no choice not to offshore manufacturing to china. I take this a bit personally because I’ve seen a lot of my own personal work get offshored to a new team with less experience. Almost everything that china manufactures used to be manufactured here before china. The reason corporations offshored wasn’t because our domestic industry wasn’t capable, but rather because cheap labor and no worker protections is much more profitable. It really is as simple as that.
There’s no fundamental reason it wouldn’t be possible for companies to rebuild domestic manufacturing like it once was, but the biggest obstacle is that the profit motives that shifted manufacturing to china in the first place are still in play. Companies like apple could reinvest their mountains of wealth back into domestic manufacturing, but it would cut into their profits and it’s not what business executives and wallstreet want.
I think this misses part of the problem: China didn’t force Apple to build a walled garden, Apple did it entirely on its own. The very same restrictions that Apple has been designing to block owners from using competing stores and apps are being repurposed as weapons of censorship at the hands of authoritarian states. Apple could realistically choose to stop it’s coercive walled garden business model practices in order to give their users a realistic path away from censorship. The sticking point for Apple is that without the app store shackles in place, they’d potentially loose billions of dollars per year in app store transaction fees.
I have yet to see THOM of osnews.com send pictures of refugees fleeing Xinjiang region in China as evidence of his position of China’s human rights abuses, where there are so many reeducation camps aka concentration camps.
In Hitler’s Germany, we have refugees escaping Nazi Europe, even during wartime where there are not enough free routes to escape. In China, you have a very wide borders with countries to escape, and there is no way China can guard all of those borders. There are of course, political asylums in the name of freedom in Xinjiang, but those are rare and live in luxury abroad, and their job is just to demonize China like what Thom is doing. And of course, they do not have any evidence, except from Vice News and other western media going into that region and a bunch of Satellite photographs.
A bunch of western “experts” who think the best evidence to show for a genocide taking place are satellite photographs and western media sensationalized headlines.
In the Philippines’ war on illegal drugs, we are also victims of these losers, who does nothing but complain.