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Best Buy Stops Selling Huawei Smartphones (cnet.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the bad-press-is-good-press dept.

Best Buy, the nation's largest electronics big box retailer, has ceased ordering new smartphones from Huawei and will stop selling its products over the next few weeks. Best Buy didn't provide any details as to why it has severed ties with Huawei, but it may have to do with security concerns involving the Chinese government. CNET reports: The move is a critical blow to Huawei, which is the world's third-largest smartphone vendor behind Apple and Samsung but has struggled to establish any presence in the U.S. Best Buy was one of Huawei's biggest retail partners, and one of the rare places where you could physically see its phones. Huawei phones aren't sold by any U.S. carriers, where a majority of Americans typically buy their phones. Security concerns have long dogged Huawei in the U.S. In 2012, the House Intelligence Committee released a report accusing Huawei and fellow Chinese vendor ZTE of making telecommunications equipment that posed national security threats, and banned U.S. companies from buying the gear. At the time, the committee stressed that the report didn't refer to its smartphones. But that's changed over the last several months. The directors of the FBI, CIA and NSA all expressed their concerns about the risks posed by Huawei and ZTE.

7 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Re:They should by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They should stop selling all phones because they all are made in China or have Chinese parts

    Or perhaps instead of "expressing concerns" the FBI, CIA, and NSA should be asked to provide some actual evidence.

  2. Re: They should by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or maybe people should exhibit common sense. I don't trust any of the TLA agencies, but I trust the Chinese government a whole lot less. And Emperor Xi owns and controls Huawei, and everything else there.

    --
    -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
  3. Re: They should by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    These 3 agencies have a combined budget of over $60B. When expressing their opinion on a cellphone, they should be able to offer something more than just gut feelings.

  4. For me it is the opposite. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A foreign country has a whole lot less power over me than an agency in "my" own country!

    In China, I'd buy an NSA phone (Aka Google/Apple/MS/etc,incliding Japanese/EU brands),

    But in the US I sure as hell will buy a Chinese phone. Or a Russian one.

    Always preferably not via mail order, but by traveling there.

    To buy a US phone in the US, or Chinese phone in China requires the worst kind of anticonspiracy theorist / blackeyed syndrome.

    Interestingly, I learned this strategy from the NSA itself (thanks Snowden!): When two enemies quarrel, rejoice!
    (The German faity tale The Valiant Little Tailor teaches how to get two giants to fight, to win against them both.)

    1. Re:For me it is the opposite. by Gojira+Shipi-Taro · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm not so much concerned about snooping as I am having my device potentially used as a tool in an enemy power's cyber warfare campaign against my own nation.

      --
      "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
    2. Re:For me it is the opposite. by hazardPPP · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm not so much concerned about snooping as I am having my device potentially used as a tool in an enemy power's cyber warfare campaign against my own nation.

      OK. That's a legitimate stance. However, think about it more deeply.

      What does China care about the most? It's own economic development. How does it achieve that development? By exporting tons of stuff all over the planet.

      Now think what would happen if China were to all of a sudden cyber-weaponize every smartphone in a country...and cause some serious damage - it doesn't have to be the US, it can be a small country, say Denmark or Singapore. What would be the result? Everyone (and not just in the affected country, but pretty much everywhere) would ditch their Chinese-made smartphones, never buy them again, and probably start dumping all of their Chinese-made electronics...this would be a disaster - for China primarily. How likely then is China to do such a thing? Highly unlikely.

      So, would you want Chinese-made telecom equipment in CIA headquarters or the White House? Surely not. Do you want CEOs of large American companies using Chinese phones for confidential conversations? Probably not. Does it however matter if the average Jane or Joe on the street is using them? It doesn't.

      Sure China might've installed a backdoor in every smartphone that could potentially wreak planetary havoc. However if they ever get around to using it, that would mean that the world situation is so bad that you would have a lot of other things to worry about before thinking of your smartphone.

  5. Re: They should by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The US government is just as shitty as China's,.

    Um, no, it's actually, very objectively not.

    For just one blindingly obvious example, you can trash Trump 24/7 and not go to jail. Try that in China.