JMaille

22july2013 said:

...the government has many "100% legal options" at their disposal, such as not buying any products for their own employees from companies that censor free speech...

Seriously, you don't see how this suggestion is a violation of the first amendment?  Congress and politicians don't have such "100% legal options" or at least they aren't supposed to.  The procurement systems set up by the laws of the United States are, in fact, supposed to prevent politicians and the government from punishing companies for actions protected by the law and The Constitution.  Without such protections the First Amendment is meaningless.  But I suppose the fact that people think this sort of behavior by politicians is perfectly fine explains how the United States got into the fucked up situation it's in today.

Why does everyone immediately jump to the conclusion that these are bribes or payments to curry favor.  Seriously, look at who the money is going to!  Who exactly is the convicted felon here?  It is just as likely to be protection money.  

"Nice business you have there... It would be a shame if something happened to it."

Maybe my experience wasn't typical but before Apple and Amazon worked out their "deal" every "Apple" product I bought on Amazon was counterfeit.  That's why I stopped buying Apple products from Amazon.  I'm still not convinced it's safe to buy Apple products on Amazon.

So if they win their case against Apple does that mean that Sainsbury's, Asda, and others will be able to start sitting up mini-shops inside all the TESCOs without paying TESCO anything and without TESCO being able to stop them?  I mean that would be better for consumers too, wouldn't it?  After all everyone knows TESCO is making enough money as it is, they can afford to allow it, right?

I guess I did forget to mention the issue of companies allowing employees to access company network systems with personal devices.  But then when you have major corporations allowing random HVAC contractors full access to the corporate network (including retail and credit card systems) just to monitor the temperature in some stockroom somewhere, why be worried about what some unhappy employee might steal from you or do to your company network.