Live data from Hacker News

GreatFire is tracking Apple iOS applications for instances of censorship

applecensorship.com

31–40 of 78 posts

Re: GreatFire is tracking Apple iOS applications for instances of censorship

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It falls under the "nominative use" defense to an assertion of trademark infringement. Free speech has nothing to do with it. Trademarks are intended to provide consumers with the confidence that the products they're buying really come from the producer they claim to come from. As such, you're prohibited from assembling your own computer and branding it Apple; you've never been prohibited from referring to Apple.

It was my understanding that this doesn’t cover using a trademark in a domain name. I could be wrong; my only experience of this is that “WordPress” is a trademark, and therefore it’s generally accepted that any WordPress related product is not allowed to use the trademark in their domains.

I am not a lawyer, but this 6th Circuit case might be relevant: Taubman v. Webfeats.

"Even if [the] use is commercial, it must still lead to a likelihood of confusion to be violative of the Lanham Act. 15 U.S.C. § 1114(1). In Planned Parenthood, the defendant used the plaintiff's trade name as a domain name, without the qualifying moniker 'sucks,' or any other such addendum to indicate that the plaintiff was not the proprietor of the website. In contrast, 'taubmansucks.com' removes any confusion as to source. We find no possibility of confusion and no Lanham Act violation."

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-6th-circuit/1213191.html.

Re: GreatFire is tracking Apple iOS applications for instances of censorship

#32
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's silly. That's like wondering why people use awful streaming sites to watch movies and not download high quality torrents instead. Ease of use, easy of discovery, learning curves, etc.

What’s hard about going into settings and then General -> VPN -> add configuration and entering - Server - remote ID - Username - Password This is less setup than adding an email account.

Because many users of VPNs are doing so to bypass country detection.

I regularly jump between UK, US and France in my VPN app.

Re: GreatFire is tracking Apple iOS applications for instances of censorship

#34
post #3

Great site. Additionally, this doesn't show the endless number of apps that Apple censored from all countries' iOS app stores because they contained or might contain images of human bodies. It's not something the site can do, but it's important to remember that this is just the tip of the iceberg: at least in China they are required by law to block e.g. VPN apps; no such equivalent law requires them to ban apps that…

In the US a lot of questionable filtering is done because of religious or common concepts that are not very sensible but do influence the amount of money a company can make.

For example, a christian religious group might take offence to software containing other religions, and if that group is big enough, they might consider not buying anything from a company until a change is made. This basically goes for any subject and any group, but in the case of the USA, a lot of normal things are considered taboo by many groups of people (i.e. sex ed / sex health / pictures of bodies / alcohol / everything that is not american). Because some of those groups can be very large and very influential, 'normal' things get banned or ignored by those groups and as a result less money is to be made.

Re: GreatFire is tracking Apple iOS applications for instances of censorship

#36
post #29

Please note that while Apple itself may censor applications in regions, creators of the apps may choose to limit their distributions as well. For example: Bank of America's mobile banking app isn't available in Pakistan where I currently am, but this website wouldn't differentiate between that type of censorship or Apple's censorship. But, personally, I still think this is a great idea!

Doesn’t this tool focus on removals? Ie app was deployed but then not available.

No, it does not. As far as I can tell, it's simply comparing search results for the two countries -- apps which have never been distributed in China will still appear in red. Try searching for "Uber Eats", for example.

Re: GreatFire is tracking Apple iOS applications for instances of censorship

#37

Please note that while Apple itself may censor applications in regions, creators of the apps may choose to limit their distributions as well. For example: Bank of America's mobile banking app isn't available in Pakistan where I currently am, but this website wouldn't differentiate between that type of censorship or Apple's censorship. But, personally, I still think this is a great idea!

I would hesitate to call that "censorship" at all. Some apps simply aren't relevant in a country because they're associated with a physical service which doesn't exist there. For example, a number of food delivery apps (like Uber Eats and Grubhub) don't operate in China, and as such have chosen to not make their app available there.

Re: GreatFire is tracking Apple iOS applications for instances of censorship

#38

I'm not sure how this shows censorship. It just shows you if an app is available in China. Lots of apps aren't available in China or outside of where the developer is based.

This site allows you to compare with other countries too. Search for VPN, Communism, Privacy. Try Brazil, Argentina, even Russia. Results are mostly similar to US.
Post reply on HN