You've got to just hope that Apple realizes how bad this would blow up in their face if they worked with police in Belarus to identify democratic protestors, especially given their emphasis on "privacy" in their marketing.
Apple has handed over the entire operation of iCloud in China to a regime owned company, including all user data and keys (they did warn users that they were going to do that though).
At the same time they do not permit side-loading, thereby handing complete control over what users are allowed to install on their devices to authoritarian regimes.
This is not simply "complying with local laws" as they like to present it.
Woah. I don’t know how I missed this news for so long.
https://www.androidcentral.com/apple-may-have-ditched-encryp...
One could argue that Apple should have just exited the Chinese market instead of letting the local government spy on their citizens. Google has taken that position.
It’s a similar situation for Microsoft Teams and Skype.
If Facebook does the same, they will be available in China too. Google tried to do it with their Project Dragonfly, but bad publicity made them stop.
Is there a law that requires them to offer iCloud at all if they want to sell their hardware there?
Is there a law that requires them to ban side-loading?
It seems to me that Apple is always doing a bit more than they are required to do under the law. They clearly want to stay in the good graces of those regimes, especially in China.
But I do agree that the problem in general is structural and not specific to Apple. I think there should be something akin to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to limit what those corporations can do in other countries. There has to be a limit to their aiding and abetting human rights violations.
There are multiple of different negative actions that can be taken against a company, beyond just customers refusing to buy the product.
These potential actions have the ability to cause Apple, and their employees, lots of harm.
For example, in America, one negative action that many people are taking against Apple is lawsuits (Apple has lots some lawsuits, in the past, and lost a bunch of money over it).
But, there could be many other ways to harm Apple, beyond those examples. EX negative publicity, people or companies refusing to work with Apple, and many other things.
It's very important to remember that a big part of Belarusian protesters work in IT and even in Apple
Apple customers do not care. There is a small minority of people who care (like people on this site) but I bet even they will continue to buy Apple products.
We are talking about a mind bogglingly rich company with arrogance to match. Even if this gets them bad PR, it will be forgotten in a few minutes.
No reason for me to buy any new Apple products and after this news, I won’t.
Apple was banking on privacy marketing as a competitive edge. I think that was a good strategy. Since they appear to be worse at executing on that strategy than I thought they would be, they are losing that segment of the market.
I mean huge. Outdoor posters and slogans. TV shows.
I mean, this is truly Orwellian stuff, but in real world. Old uncharismatic dictator recruits huge soulless machine of most powerful corporation in the world to rule small poor country. I know this is not entirely true, but people will love this.