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Apple Pulls Anti-Censorship Apps from China's App Store (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Fortune:Services helping Chinese users circumvent the "Great Firewall of China" have been pulled from Apple's Chinese App Store en masse. On Saturday morning, at least some software makers affected by the sweep received notification from Apple that their tools were removed for violating Chinese law. Internet censorship in China restricts communications about topics including democracy, Tibetan freedom, and the 1989 Tienanmen Square protests. The culling primarily seems to have affected virtual private networks, or VPNs, which mask users' Internet activity and data from outside monitoring. According to a report by the New York Times, many of the most popular such apps are now missing from the Chinese App Store.
We aren't at war with China, obviously. So how, exactly, would imposing the wartime rules you're thinking about work?
When you're in a country - your own, or someone else's - you are expected to obey their laws. If you choose to disobey them for any reason, you should do so knowing that the country will probably punish you if they catch you.
Seriously - how would it go over if the US arbitrarily said "other countries' laws do not apply to our citizens"?
#DeleteChrome
Take a look at how much of that useless crap you own is made in China. A good portion of the U.S. economy -- your paycheck included -- goes to that repressive regime.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
It's all down to money, if you want to sell in that country you have to abide by their laws.
And that's the way it is in most countries.
But more to the point, when the general consensus even here at Slashdot is that the primary duty of any shareholder owned company is to maximize profits, should this be any surprise?
As long as corporate law does not define some non-abstract requirement to be beneficial to society - and what does that mean, anyway? To me one thing, to the Chinese, another - than what is done with one's products is of no consequence.
Zyklon B, anyone?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
It is none of our business and would be ineffective and unenforceable. America is not going to "fix" China. That is up to the Chinese people.
Agreed; OTOH where should we draw the line regarding American companies assisting the Chinese government's abuse of their citizens? e.g. If China had a law on the books demanding that Apple immediately report any private message that mentioned democracy, so that the sender and receiver could be jailed and tortured, would it be morally acceptable for Apple to comply with that law?
IIRC IBM willingly assisted the Nazis with the IT tasks necessary for their roundup and attempted genocide of European Jews and other minorities, and IBM was rightfully criticized afterwards for having done so. How can we avoid a repeat of that sort of thing?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.