
Apple: Chinese firm to operate China iCloud accounts - chrystianv
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-42631386
======
rainbowmverse
This just reminds me of that subthread in yesterday's Facebook home device
post where people were ranking tech companies. A lot of people put Apple first
on respect for privacy.

It's good to have a reminder of the nature of corporations so soon after that.
Tools for users to take privacy and security into their own hands need to be
made accessible enough to make it truly matter.

Its like herd immunity with vaccinations: it doesn't matter that you use
encryption and block trackers if all the people around you provide enough data
to make inferences about the private few.

~~~
klodolph
A counterpoint here: Consider American subpoenas, court order, FISA warrants
and the like. Remember that FISA warrants are secret! Having the data managed
by a US company has these consequences. Perhaps you trust the US government
more than you trust the Chinese government... that is very reasonable, to be
sure. But it makes so much more sense that your data is subject to the law in
the country you reside in, rather than the laws of a foreign power.

This is not even remotely hypothetical. Making everyone's data accessible to
organizations and people subject to US court orders is bad for privacy.

This kind of thing will be happening more and more, and not just China and
Russia, but also the EU. So it won't just be that Chinese users can be spied
upon by the Chinese government. It will also be true that it will be more
difficult for the US to spy on citizens of other countries.

~~~
jstanley
In some respects I'd rather have my data managed by a Chinese company than a
British one.

It's exponentially more difficult for the Chinese government to wield data
against me than it is for the British government, as I do not live somewhere
where the Chinese government has any power over me.

~~~
stcredzero
_It 's exponentially more difficult for the Chinese government to wield data
against me than it is for the British government, as I do not live somewhere
where the Chinese government has any power over me._

It depends mostly on the nature of the data, and how much interest they have
in you. If the data is damning enough, and they would find value in using it
against you, then the Chinese government is perfectly able to hire someone to
do so.

Anyone in China who is significantly wealthy is effectively involved in
politics, with potentially life and death consequences. To stay under the
radar, you have to stay at the level of inconsequential small fry.

~~~
jstanley
Right, but if you're not in China at all, the Chinese government don't care
about you.

So it's (in some respects) safer to have your data managed in a foreign
country than in the country you live in, as a counterpoint to the claim that
"it makes so much more sense that your data is subject to the law in the
country you reside in".

~~~
stcredzero
_Right, but if you 're not in China at all, the Chinese government don't care
about you._

In the vast majority of cases, yes. In an absolute sense, no.

 _So it 's (in some respects) safer to have your data managed in a foreign
country than in the country you live in, as a counterpoint to the claim that
"it makes so much more sense that your data is subject to the law in the
country you reside in"._

There is a point to that.

------
emsy
IMHO this is sending a strong signal to people like myself who mainly use an
iPhone for privacy reasons. Regardless of whether or not the data is only
stored encrypted at the 3rd party, their willingness to compromise in this
regard is a strong indicator for their future actions and their commitment to
privacy and security.

~~~
dave84
What course of action would you prefer: Willingly shut down iCloud in China or
have iCloud forcefully shut down in China?

~~~
ISL
I'd prefer that China allow its citizens to freely access the global internet.

~~~
justaman
I think(I hope) as more people in China come online they will realize that
they are missing out.

~~~
r00fus
Sadly the opposite might occur. Fake news is very useful. For corporations, it
acts like PR/marketing channel. For nation-states it's a great propaganda
channel.

What if the Communist Party of China was actually visionaries what the
Internet could do for oppressive nation-states, if properly harnessed for the
good of the party?

------
cromwellian
Money trumps principles plain and simple. My guess is this will continue until
the day Apple sales in China decline below a certain level, then they’ll be a
‘brave, principled’ decision announced that they are shutting down iCloud in
China or withdrawing from the market altogether.

~~~
ISL
In Apple's case, as the Apple manufacturing base is largely Chinese, the
government has considerable leverage regarding corporate decisions.

~~~
cromwellian
If I was Apple then, I’d start investing some of that $200 billion they have
in the bank in some advanced nonchinese manufacturing. Get some balls like
Elon Musk and take some risks.

------
shp0ngle
Apple to FBI: No you can't get into iPhones, our users want security.

Apple to China: Here are the keys

~~~
MollyR
Wow,I didn't think of that example. It's a pretty huge hypocrisy.

~~~
MBCook
In both cases they’re complying with the laws.

The data may be stored with a Chinese company but it’s still encrypted isn’t
it? They can’t read it can they?

~~~
tpush
Third sentence from the artice: "They include a clause that both Apple and the
Chinese firm will have access to all data stored on iCloud.".

If the Chinese firm couldn't read the data access would be pretty pointless me
thinks.

~~~
MBCook
I’d agree, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not true. I could see Apple
trying to keep certain data encrypted in private in exchange for other less
important data being “open“.

------
debt
I absolutely believe Apple's foray into China is a huge misstep for the Apple
brand.

Imagine when all the censorship and surveillance and the actions taking with
personal data start surfacing, they're going to very quickly try to get out.
Apple pulling VPN apps off the App Store is just the beginning.

It may be a big market, but I think Apple shouldn't be there under the Apple
name, because stuff like this shows me that it's literally a different
company.

It's simply not worth the business.

~~~
innagadadavida
Why do people in USA care about what the Chinese government does? It's not
like you are willing to take care of it's citizens, but the Chinese government
has a responsibility and they seem to be trading off fairness so fewer people
are impoverished.

~~~
chatmasta
Today you, tomorrow me.

------
bitmapbrother
"At Apple, we believe privacy is a fundamental human right."[1]

Unless you live in China in which case your fundamental human rights take a
back seat.

I did a Google translate on their Chinese web page:

"At Apple, we treat privacy as the fundamental right of everyone."[2]

Perhaps Google translate messed up and missed the "human rights" part from the
Chinese translation, but I'm guessing it didn't.

[1][https://www.apple.com/privacy/](https://www.apple.com/privacy/)

[2][https://www.apple.com/cn/privacy/](https://www.apple.com/cn/privacy/)

------
codedokode
That might be a mistake. Once Apple makes a deal with China, Russia will ask
for the same deal. Russian government want to keep the data in their country
too.

~~~
jitl
If the choice is either to comply with those governments, or loose an
enourmous market, Apple will comply in both cases.

~~~
Grue3
Russian market is way smaller, and the good PR they will undoubtedly get for
abandoning it will offset the losses.

------
emptybits
Apple's compliance with Beijing is morally weak but financially strong, not
just for them but for Apple Developers.

A month ago, Apple noted that it has 1.8 million _developers_ in China (and/or
developers publishing _to_ China -- not clear to me). At any rate, the Apple
platform has made those developers $17 _billion_ dollars.[1]

So China is big business for Apple developers and I assume many of those
developers are US/CA/EU/AU/etc. who benefit from the platform being available
in China.

[1] [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/03/apples-tim-cook-says-
develop...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/03/apples-tim-cook-says-developers-
have-earned-17-billion-from-china-app-store.html)

~~~
innagadadavida
When you say "moral" are they your morals or the developer's and China's
morals? Does your morals accommodate theirs or is it too restrictive?

~~~
emptybits
Yes, those are my own assessments.

It's possible that someone could view Apple's decision to compromise its
customers privacy to remain in the Chinese market as "morally strong". I would
like to hear a defense of that position if someone held it.

Apple's decision appears to be _legally compliant_ but morality must transcend
legality in my worldview. i.e. the "good men" argument per Emerson or others

------
seanmcdirmid
They aren't the first. Microsoft/Skype had to outsource PRC Skype account's to
TomTom, Azure has to outsource its PRC cloud operation to a Shanghai utility
company, and so on.

------
bitmapbrother
If you ever needed a sign that Apple cares more about making money than their
user's privacy than this is it. If Apple really respected their user's privacy
than they should take a stand and lets the chips fall where they may. If this
is the cost of doing business in China then perhaps Apple should rethink its
strategy.

------
tj-teej
They're "good faith" is asking customers to read the Apple Terms and
Conditions...

I hate to reference Orwell, but the fact that Apple convinced us all to lie by
saying we'd read the T&C and now are telling us that there's "important"
information in this unreadable document seems like classic Orwell.

------
MollyR
This is probably the way it should be. Multinational corporation have
subdivisions that handle local laws and customs.

ex. Facebook Germany should handle all its specific speech laws rather than
trying blanket global speech to Germany or EU specific laws.

Though at that point you start losing advantages at scaling depending on
implementation.

------
a_c
> iCloud accounts registered outside of China are not affected.

What exactly does this mean? What makes an online account registered in a
geographic location? Is it determined by where the iphone is bought, the IP
addresses when the registration is made, the email account used for the
registration or something else?

~~~
chatmasta
It goes by billing address of payment method.

------
stcredzero
As of early 2018, national boundaries combined with linguistic barriers are
still more powerful than the internet. Could this change with low Earth orbit
satellite internet? (Given the precedents to date, I'd expect the Chinese
government to jam the signals or otherwise intervene.)

~~~
chatmasta
Not as long as payments go through the current financial system. If you’re
using a US credit card, with a US billing address, to transact with a company,
then you are “US registered” regardless of where your packets are routed.
Until it’s possible/mainstream to decouple identity from payment, your payment
method will always be the weakest link.

~~~
stcredzero
Are you presuming that most of the internet will be paywalled by then?

~~~
chatmasta
To be fair I was speaking more about iCloud and the App Store (which _is_ “the
Internet” to many people) than I was the wider internet.

To answer your question... I hope not. But perhaps we are already there.
Boiling frog etc.

------
samat
I am very concerned that now Apple will make exactly same thing with Russian
accounts.

This link might come handy: [https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT201389](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201389)

All you need is a foreign credit/debit card.

------
dingdongding
This just shows to what extent Apple is willing to bend its rules for China.
They're just too dependent on China. China has upper hand here. I've a feeling
that one day China might ditch Apple.

------
ttflee
Just cleared some of my iCloud photos with faces.

Resistance is useless. WeChat, QQ, AliPay and other complied third-party
online services are more than enough. As long as you are connected in the
Matrix, it has you.

------
jxy
A correct title would be:

    
    
        Apple sold out all China iCloud accounts
    

I guess I understand. It is either the market or the privacy and security of
their Chinese user. They chose the market so all of our retirement funds still
hold their face values.

------
reaperducer
Another chance for Apple to stand up and do the right thing, and it flinched
because it would rather have money than morals.

And don't give me the standard amoral shareholders whine. Apple is already on
record as saying it would rather do the right thing than make money, and if
investors don't like it they can go pound sand.

Now Apple's sold out a billion people.

How long until the Chinese government requires access to the Secure Enclave
chips in iDevices?

~~~
jxy
Actually, once you have the iCloud accounts, you can bypass the Secure Enclave
chips.

------
ng12
"Cloud Big Data Industrial Development Co"? Doesn't sound sketchy at all.

------
kome
In Europe we need to do like in China. Or our tech industry is doomed to stay
small...

~~~
cromwellian
Protectionism isn’t going to make your tech industry globally competitive.

~~~
kome
No, but who cares? Tencent, Baido, etc are _not_ globally competitive, but
they are very fine.

You know what else is not going to make European tech industry globally
competitive? The chronic lack of money, because it's all siphoned away by
google, amazon, apple, and such. Do we need a global competition? Why?

An internal competition in a huge market is good enough. China encouraged the
development of a strong internal market: and they are innovating like crazy.
Europe is big enough to do the same.

~~~
cromwellian
China has a population of 1+ billion who are firewalled both by network access
and by language.

European citizens have better English proficiency and no great firewall, hence
the transaction barriers to consuming global services are easier.

I’m afraid you have to be globally competitive unless the EU wants a Great
Firewall.

~~~
kome
> hence the transaction barriers to consuming global services are easier.

It's just a political choice. It's not a fact of life. Better regulation and
better taxation of capitals would "firewall" Europe as well.

As I said below, language has never been an issue. Nobody is using google
_because_ is in English. Google is well translated everywhere.

~~~
cromwellian
The regulation and taxes are more likely to disadvantage smaller players.

Europe’s problem with tech investment isn’t because of existing big tech
players.

