Will Apple, Google, and Amazon install Australian backdoors?
Or will they just exit the country?
I say this as an Australian developer who relies on these services to communicate with family back home. The Australian market is so small that these companies could do it, and I think that it would have the desired effect. Australia is a country which requires these services, and if every single citizen was suddenly without these facilities then something would be done about the problem.
Right now, the average person in Australia is not informed about the changes, and they do not know the impact it will have on them long term. It needs to be brought into sharp focus.
That is of course, if these companies actually see it as a threat to them - which is up in the air.
I feel like there has been a decent amount of coverage on this topic as it was a main subject in the final sitting days in the year and you had the labor opposition ceding their "no" position.
Maybe it's not fully explained technically to everyone, but people generally understand that encryption is generally ubiquitous on the internet.
I think in the end alot of people actually don't mind the idea that the government should have some power to snoop on someone they think is doing bad things. They understand to varying degrees what kind of abuse that will lead to, but just don't see the inherit dangers ever applying to them or someone they know.
The CIA is said to not spy on American citizens domestic activities, but ASIS and ASD can do that for them.
Mind you, if they all exited the country - along with Netflix and Facebook then I'd imagine the bulk of Australia would suddenly take a serious interest in it and the law would get revoked.
So maybe it depends on the employees?
Either way, anything we'd comment would just be speculation.
Why not Google?
Google and Amazon will definitely sell out the users.
(and I'm not an Apple user)
Australian users however do expect privacy. They do expect that their chat messages will only be read by the recipient and not the government.
They get to see a lot and what happens with that is up to the Chinese government, just as it is up to the US government what happens to what the US servers see.
I want to think Australia shot itself in the foot here, if big companies will be exiting or if Australian developers are looked over for projects because they don't want to deal with this backdoor BS.