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Georgia Apple Store Refuses To Sell iPad To Iranian-American Teen
pdclarry writes "An Iranian-American teenager was told by an Apple store employee that they could not sell her an iPad because it would violate U.S. trade restrictions. She returned to the store with a camera crew from a local TV station and was again turned down. Apparently an Apple employee heard her speaking Farsi. As he was also of Iranian extraction he recognized the language and used this as a basis for refusal."
Sounds like the sales person is a bit confused about the regulations. I'm surprised they didn't call over a manager especially when a film crew showed up, or maybe they did after reading the article. It looks like all involved are a bit confused about the regulations.
There was absolutely nothing preventing them from selling the Ipad to the teen since they were in America and said nothing (according to them) about sending it overseas. Now, it would be illegal for the teen to send the Ipad back to Iran, but that would be the responsibility of the teen and not the Apple store. It sounds like the manager and employees have carried the restrictions on shipping certain products to countries like Iran a bit too far as it isn't meant to prevent them from selling those products to people from Iran living in this country.
1. This is old 2. This has nothing to do with race, ethnicity, or 9/11 3. This has nothing to do with Apple 4. This has to do with the US embargo on Iran, which includes selling goods to anyone in the US that could take them back to Iran. This is law. This is not Apple acting out of nowhere. It's in their legal terms that states they follow US embargo laws. If you don't like them, tell your congressman to change US embargo law or to lift the embargo against Iran. Good luck with that.