351–360 of 755 posts
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That is an excellent point and one I have tried bringing up before. Allowing corporations and individuals to obtain such massive amounts of wealth is a national security threat.
It is also a personal security threat and democracy threat. See also: http://expatalachians.com/biplanes-over-blair-calling-in-the...
Apple’s approach to China remains the most disappointing (and hypocritical) thing about the company. When privacy really matters for the users that need it most, Apple sells them out for continued access to the Chinese market. https://stratechery.com/2021/the-information-on-apple-in-chi...
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> How different is this from the 1980's in the U.S. Historians generally agree that Martina Navratilova was rightfully and lawfully detained for insulting the Republican party. And that it was important for Toyota to comply with US lawful interception requirements for any communication in automobiles.
>Historians generally agree that Martina Navratilova was rightfully and lawfully detained for insulting the Republican party. What incident? What insult? What historians?
That's as far as I got, I can't figure out what point the comment is trying to make.
Daring Fireball [1] has another passage from the article which is illuminating with regards to any promises Apple makes about how it will resist governmental pressure to compromise its products, vis-à-vis Apple's CSAM scanning tool. "Sometime in 2014 or early 2015, China’s State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping told members of the Apple Maps team to make the Diaoyu Islands, the objects of a long-running territorial di…
I totally get that people want companies to act with dignity, but the idea that a company, even one as large as Apple, is going to make any sort of difference with respect to China's oddities is wishful thinking. Apple has a business to run. They abide by all sorts of requests in various countries in which they operate. Of course there has to be a line somewhere, I'm just not sure this is it.
They don't need and shouldn't make any difference at all. They could actually leave the Chinese market and make a difference for the rest of the world. They don't have and shouldn't have this responsibility anyway.
And they have the money, market share, and power to ignore China and not only survive it but continue to generate a lot of wealth for the shareholders.
So...local politicians, in a market where Apple was making money hand-over-fist, were feeling kinda used. By a huge foreign corporation. And the they started getting sticky on all sorts of regulatory things that Apple needed. Until Apple's CEO promised to do a bunch of "local investing" in their country. How different is this from the 1980's in the U.S., when Japanese auto makers decided that they needed to start bui…
Bribery is illegal, just ask FIFA and the FBI.
Companies make investments in countries all the time for concessions on reduced taxes, streamlined approvals, etc... When Apple wanted to enter India's markets in a bigger way, they agreed to build a factory there. What is the difference? This is just how big business is done all over the world. I'm not making a judgement about whether this is good or bad, I just don't get all of the outrage and surprise over a process that is far from unusual.
When businesses become so large, they no longer are a $countryOfOrigin company (A US company in the case of Apple). They become multinational entities that have no loyalty to a nation, just loyalty to pocket books.
That is an excellent point and one I have tried bringing up before. Allowing corporations and individuals to obtain such massive amounts of wealth is a national security threat.
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Google had been running search in China up till 2010, and it has been censoring its results according to Chinese government wishes. Then, Google found out that China has been hacking them, got angry and left.
Leaky censoring, you could still find the banned stuff. Sergey Brin was very anti-authoritarian given his background, and Google's decision to leave China was far more principled than "we have no choice". They were given a choice to comply with onerous government restrictions and decided to say no. (And yes, the "old" Google of the Brin area is gone. I also don't think Steve Jobs would kowtow to the CCP and compromis…
When businesses become so large, they no longer are a $countryOfOrigin company (A US company in the case of Apple). They become multinational entities that have no loyalty to a nation, just loyalty to pocket books.
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I know this would never happen, but I wish companies would just default to not doing business in China, unless they are able to sell their product, uncompromised. I wouldn't mind legislation to that effect, though I'm sure that would come with a ton of unintended consequences. If China (and similar repressive regimes) wants these sorts of products with onerous restrictions built in, they should have to build them the…
When I see state capital or communist societies, I see "single whale that has to purchase at inflated prices" I'll spin up a British Virgin Islands company or buy another passport first in response to any legislation aimed at preventing business with those whales Others are already 5 steps ahead of me