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Comment by protomyth | Hacker News Reader

Because its hard to believe Google is protecting our privacy instead of protecting its own turf. Google does that, Apple doesn't. The interesting case would be if Microsoft still had a horse in the game. Given Windows 10 you might see the same reaction.

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Oh, Apple does when it is required to make money, like in China. They handed over all iCloud data to the government.

Companies are companies, they don't "care" about privacy, or anything at all. Google, Apple, Facebook, they're all in this for the money. And that is fine.

The sooner we realize that, the better.

Every company follows the law of each country they are in unless they are criminals. China is a country that affords no privacy.

Yes, and faced with the option of making money in China and eliminating any and all user privacy, or not making money in China, Apple chose the former.

Comparing following laws in a country with willingly compromising privacy in a country that does not compel the company to do it is some serious false equivalence.

No, willingly entering and operating in a country where you know you will have to compromise on privacy is putting profits ahead of privacy.

Take the Google/China situation. If Google entered China and handed over all info on Chinese users to the government, it would be doing exactly the same that Apple does now.

Just like other companies, Apple cares more about profits than privacy, so it will operate in China for the profits, even if it has to infringe on the privacy of every single user there.

Apple doesn’t do that?

You enjoy using iMessages on your android phone and Linux laptop do you?

Yeah, yeah, it’s different. Except that it’s the same in the areas in which each competes. There’s plenty of examples of Apple freezing out others from a market.

Apple doesn't sell data to third parties, so Apple doesn't do that.

Yeah, they just gave it to China.

Selling user data to a 3rd party company and turning over user data to a local government are two very different things. They both have their own sets of implications. Ideally, you'd wish that a company would never turn your personal data over to either. However, governments and 3rd parties are very much not the same.

Wait. Isn't everyone talking about how Apple is "fighting" the goverment / FBI for protecting their users' privacy in the US? But sharing with the Chinese goverment is ok because otherwise they won't be allowed to function there. Am I right? So that means they're not that big on fighting for your privacy is their business suffers because of that. In the US in fact their business is growing because of this little stunt they had with the FBI so they continue it.

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