Journalists, should know by now to always use Local Encrypted iTunes backup. Never use Google Cloud either. Are they actually that stupid?
Yes, most journalists are not tech savvy, As much as I think Apple will not provide a back door, but once the information is under the control of a Chinese company controlled by the government all bets are off.
People need to stop pressuring US companies to fix what the do not like about the Chinese government. The opposite could happen, China could start pressuring companies for how the US or EU government runs and does things. Remember the 1.3B of them to our 0.35 Billion, their buy power is growing fast than ours. If you do not want other countries messing with our freedoms stop messing with theirs.
People need to stop pressuring US companies to fix what the do not like about the Chinese government. - This is NOT really the case. Apple does moral-posturing in US, but NOT in china. It is this "hypocrisy" that people are calling out. Hiding behind "Apple follows the laws of respective countries" excuse does not work. Then Apple should shut up their mouth in US as well and just get on with business.
Apple had iCloud account & servers outside China for a long time and what was in China was owned by Apple and China left Apple alone where they made google and other company put their servers in China under China control. What change to cause the policy change with Apple, it was the US government actions of spying on citizen and non-citizen information. China is in part just reacting to what the US is doing. Apple for the most part get away with a lot more in China than any other US companies. China treats Apple well and protects Apples business in China to some degree, not other company gets this treatment.
Chinese-based servers have always been subject to content controls, aka censorship, and neither Google nor Apple were exceptions. Nothing has changed in that regard, it's always been this way. For that reason it will be a mild surprise if Google places any servers in China now and even more surprising if they hold user data, but anything is possible. Chasing dollars is hard to resist.
In any event China never had control of Google servers based there "back in the day" when they had 'em AFAIK so you're misrepresenting how things were. China's "Great Firewall" could block services not originating in China and eventually did so with Google, which is what forced Google's hand and lead to a data center in China so content could still be delivered albeit now subject to censorship. Google was raked over the coals for doing so too with protests in the street in front of Google Corporate and called before Congress where they were chastised for capitulating. In comparison the response to Apple's move exposing user data is pretty muted. I'm not aware of Congress demanding an investigation and protests are non-existent.
But Google servers were never under Chinese control, only subject to Chinese rules and the content-delivery whims of the Chinese government. Very often Google would only discover after the fact that some particular content delivered in response to a search irritated the Chinese authorities. It became a cat-and-mouse game at times.
Until the last couple of years China did not demand nor have control of the data foreign company servers held. What Apple has agreed to is a relatively recent development, but they are not the only ones forced into it if they wanna play.
Journalists, should know by now to always use Local Encrypted iTunes backup. Never use Google Cloud either. Are they actually that stupid?
Yes, most journalists are not tech savvy, As much as I think Apple will not provide a back door, but once the information is under the control of a Chinese company controlled by the government all bets are off.
People need to stop pressuring US companies to fix what the do not like about the Chinese government. The opposite could happen, China could start pressuring companies for how the US or EU government runs and does things. Remember the 1.3B of them to our 0.35 Billion, their buy power is growing fast than ours. If you do not want other countries messing with our freedoms stop messing with theirs.
People need to stop pressuring US companies to fix what the do not like about the Chinese government. - This is NOT really the case. Apple does moral-posturing in US, but NOT in china. It is this "hypocrisy" that people are calling out. Hiding behind "Apple follows the laws of respective countries" excuse does not work. Then Apple should shut up their mouth in US as well and just get on with business.
Apple had iCloud account & servers outside China for a long time and what was in China was owned by Apple and China left Apple alone where they made google and other company put their servers in China under China control. What change to cause the policy change with Apple, it was the US government actions of spying on citizen and non-citizen information. China is in part just reacting to what the US is doing. Apple for the most part get away with a lot more in China than any other US companies. China treats Apple well and protects Apples business in China to some degree, not other company gets this treatment.
Chinese-based servers have always been subject to content controls, aka censorship, and neither Google nor Apple were exceptions. Nothing has changed in that regard, it's always been this way. For that reason it will be a mild surprise if Google places any servers in China now and even more surprising if they hold user data, but anything is possible. Chasing dollars is hard to resist.
In any event China never had control of Google servers based there "back in the day" when they had 'em AFAIK so you're misrepresenting how things were. China's "Great Firewall" could block services not originating in China and eventually did so with Google, which is what forced Google's hand and lead to a data center in China so content could still be delivered albeit now subject to censorship. Google was raked over the coals for doing so too with protests in the street in front of Google Corporate and called before Congress where they were chastised for capitulating. In comparison the response to Apple's move exposing user data is pretty muted. I'm not aware of Congress demanding an investigation and protests are non-existent.
But Google servers were never under Chinese control, only subject to Chinese rules and the content-delivery whims of the Chinese government. Very often Google would only discover after the fact that some particular content delivered in response to a search irritated the Chinese authorities. It became a cat-and-mouse game at times.
Until the last couple of years China did not demand nor have control of the data foreign company servers held. What Apple has agreed to is a relatively recent development, but they are not the only ones forced into it if they wanna play.
Have you ever done business in China and set up operations in China, I works for companies who have, so I have direct knowledge of China operations. If you want to do business in China the operations has to be 51% owned by the Chinese national. The only question is the Chinese national a government agency or an individual. When Google was there yes the firewall blocked it from bringing in outside content, but the server had to sit in an operation owned by China, in all sense of the word, China had control over the servers and data. The big change here is Apple has to use a hosting service which is 100% owned by the Chinese entities this is the big change, prior to this Apple did not have this restrictions and their servers and data could have been housed in Taiwan or Hong Kong for all we know or in China with a 51% owner who was friendly to Apple.
Damned if you do and damned if you don’t for Apple, between a rock and a hard place. Leave China and your company shrinks, or stay, bend the standards, and suffer the wrath of critics.
Comments
In any event China never had control of Google servers based there "back in the day" when they had 'em AFAIK so you're misrepresenting how things were. China's "Great Firewall" could block services not originating in China and eventually did so with Google, which is what forced Google's hand and lead to a data center in China so content could still be delivered albeit now subject to censorship. Google was raked over the coals for doing so too with protests in the street in front of Google Corporate and called before Congress where they were chastised for capitulating. In comparison the response to Apple's move exposing user data is pretty muted. I'm not aware of Congress demanding an investigation and protests are non-existent.
But Google servers were never under Chinese control, only subject to Chinese rules and the content-delivery whims of the Chinese government. Very often Google would only discover after the fact that some particular content delivered in response to a search irritated the Chinese authorities. It became a cat-and-mouse game at times.
Until the last couple of years China did not demand nor have control of the data foreign company servers held. What Apple has agreed to is a relatively recent development, but they are not the only ones forced into it if they wanna play.
Have you ever done business in China and set up operations in China, I works for companies who have, so I have direct knowledge of China operations. If you want to do business in China the operations has to be 51% owned by the Chinese national. The only question is the Chinese national a government agency or an individual. When Google was there yes the firewall blocked it from bringing in outside content, but the server had to sit in an operation owned by China, in all sense of the word, China had control over the servers and data. The big change here is Apple has to use a hosting service which is 100% owned by the Chinese entities this is the big change, prior to this Apple did not have this restrictions and their servers and data could have been housed in Taiwan or Hong Kong for all we know or in China with a 51% owner who was friendly to Apple.