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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.

2 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Re: They should by pablo_max · · Score: 2, Interesting

    but I trust the Chinese government a whole lot less.

    Why? What is your opinion based on? You don't live in China. Do you think the Chinese government really cares what you are doing?
    Consider, in China, the Government controls just about everything, but, they don't pretend otherwise. The people in China know they are watching and they also know that unless you are plotting against the Government or doing illegal stuff that they don't really give a shit.
    In the US, they do the same exact stuff, but just lie about it and tell everyone they are not doing that, all the while they are condemning China for doing it.
    The US government is just as shitty as China's, but at least in China, they don't try and pretend they are not fucking you.

  2. Always an enemy by pablo_max · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It is really shocking how badly Americans always need an enemy to fight. Even when there is no enemy, one will be created or invented.