In part, it's because Google's business practices involve collecting all the information they can on users. I don't spend much time worrying about China (or other governments for that matter), but if I did, Google and Facebook would top my list of companies that I would be critical of.
Same for Amazon, who runs a whole racist region (GovCloud) which only employs US citizens.
Do we really believe that the way to circumvent all of China's internal internet control is for someone to just buy an iPhone? There are Uighurs in Xingjiang who own iPhones right now. Should they believe that iMessage in China is end-to-end secure and not worry that the government can obtain access? Based on the assurances of Tim Cook?
The point is, Apple sells Privacy everywhere as their brand, but in China, has deprived their users of most means of attaining it, either by making their own offerings less secure, or by banning from their App Store, any third party apps that could let their users have privacy from the government.
And then Tim Cook went to China and praised the government for it's vision of an open internet: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/12/04...
A lot of excuses being made for Apple not living up to their principles in China and kowtowing to the almighty dollar (or renminbi in this circumstance)
Whatever China wants includes concentration camps on the same order of magnitude as the Holocaust (they're not death camps, just imprison over 1 million people based on ethnicity alone.) It includes a social score that is similar to America's no fly list, except extending to rail and not restricted to a few thousand people. Simply mentioning the anniversary date of tiananman square over any chat network (such as whatsapp, or wechat) would get your Internet cut off immediately. Free speech is such that you cannot publish a childish caricature (of their president as a teddy bear). And Google says here is every query by every user, by phone number. Go wild.
On the outrage-o-meter Google's dragonfly is like a surprise thermonuclear strike against an unsuspecting populated city during peacetime. Apple not showing news is like a guy grimacing at you, shaking his head in disgust, and turning on his heels and walking away.
This article came up when I searched it:
https://theintercept.com/2018/09/14/google-china-prototype-l...
>GOOGLE CHINA PROTOTYPE LINKS SEARCHES TO PHONE NUMBERS
>GOOGLE BUILT A prototype of a censored search engine for China that links users’ searches to their personal phone numbers, thus making it easier for the Chinese government to monitor people’s queries, The Intercept can reveal.
...
>Sources familiar with the project said that prototypes of the search engine linked the search app on a user’s Android smartphone with their phone number.
...
>“Linking searches to a phone number would make it much harder for people to avoid the kind of overreaching government surveillance that is pervasive in China.”
...
>The search engine would be operated as part of a “joint venture” partnership with a company based in mainland China, according to sources familiar with the project.
--
The Guardian's article leads with these sentences: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/18/google-ch...
>Google's prototype Chinese search engine links searches to phone numbers
>Google’s secret prototype search engine for China reportedly links users’ mobile phone numbers to what search terms they’ve used.
>This feature would allow the Chinese government to simply associate searches with individuals, thereby putting Chinese citizens at increased risk of government repression if they search for topics that their government deems politically sensitive, according to the Intercept.
So Apple allowing China what is essentially unrestricted access to iCloud data is not[0,1]? For honesty's sake, let's not cherry-pick.
That high-horse you're on only works when applied evenly and without prejudice.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/04/apple-...
[1] https://qz.com/1176376/apples-icloud-service-in-china-will-b...
By the way, can you be more specific about iCloud? The Dragonfly claim is that Google would be sharing a list of search queries per telephone number with a state company, to use however they want. Can you be clear regarding the equivalent iCloud functionality? (I don't doubt you, just interested in where the abuse would happen.) Could you give an example?
But I agree that Apple seems to get a pass here and in the news coverage as well. Perhaps because Apple is more established or because Tim Cook has better connections with media and government? Or maybe they hire the best PR firms.
But rather than focusing on individual firms, I think we should be focusing on the monopolies these tech giants are creating and the dangerous it can be for society if they aren't "fair" actors. And if we want, we should expand it beyond tech to banking, agriculture, media, etc.
Just a few years ago we were worrying about "too-big-to-fail". And here we are with endless mergers and ever greater concentration of wealth and power and influence.