Activists Angry After Apple Axes Anti-Firewall App 196
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "BBC reports that Chinese web users are criticizing Apple after the company pulled a free iPhone app called OpenDoor, which enables users to bypass firewalls and access restricted internet sites. The developers of OpenDoor — who wish to remain anonymous — told Radio Netherlands that Apple removed the app because it 'includes content that is illegal in China.' 'It is unclear to us how a simple browser app could include illegal contents, since it's the user's own choosing of what websites to view,' say the developers. 'Using the same definition, wouldn't all browser apps, including Apple's own Safari and Google's Chrome, include illegal contents?' Chinese internet users were disappointed by the move by Apple. Zhou Shuguang, a prominent Chinese blogger and citizen journalist, told U.S.-based Radio Free Asia that Apple had taken away one of the tools which internet users in China relied on to circumvent the country's great firewall. 'Apple is determined to have a share of the huge cake which is the Chinese internet market. Without strict self-censorship, it cannot enter the Chinese market,' says one Chinese user disappointed by the move by Apple."
I wonder.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Google removed all apps from Google Play China (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Apple likes censorship (Score:5, Interesting)
There you go (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I wonder.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Did they have to suffer any imposed financial pressure? I'm fairly sure Apple (and most large corprations) are happy to collude with oppressive regimes (wherever they exist in the world) when there's a profit to be made.
Re:So users still stuck in *two* walled gardens? (Score:2, Interesting)
This is simple. Apple operates in China. China has a law which makes it illegal for Chinese citizens to bypass the government firewall. China also has a law which makes it illegal to provide tools to aid Chinese citizens to bypass the government firewall. Apple is required to follow law in country which it operates. Apple removes tool from its store to comply with Chinese law.
Sucks for the Chinese citizens, but Apple has its employees to protect from government prosecution.
Re:Ai acan't athink aof amore a-words (Score:5, Interesting)
Appreciate, as always, Apple's asshole attitude.
Re:Corporations are not allowed BY LAW to have mor (Score:5, Interesting)
The only motivation of a corporation is to maximize shareholder value, and a CEO is required to act in this interest by law.
No, it isn't, and no, they're not, and you're getting the terms mixed up, anyway.
Starting with terminology, "shareholder value" is a different concept from "shareholder profit". While profit is monetary, value includes progress toward long-term goals, market share, and industry stability (as in Starbucks' case), as well as profit... sometimes. Companies can be incorporated in many different ways, and though the most common is certainly for-profit, there are certainly a good many companies that are non-profit. In the case of nonprofits, their "shareholder value" is more often measured by progress toward their mission.
Over the past few decades, "maximizing shareholder value" has become a general guideline for how to run a business, but it is not law. Rather, the generally-applicable laws only require that companies be managed according to their charter. There is also no stipulation (except a judgement after a lawsuit by angry shareholders) as to how closely the charter must be followed. If a for-profit company's CEO decides, for instance, to protest China's firewall by not selling there, and the shareholders agree, then that's perfectly fine. If a for-profit CEO decides to support charities, and some shareholders do sue over it, a judge may very well still side with the CEO, since charities make for very good advertising.
Generally speaking, for-profit corporations operate for profits, but not always, and not all companies are for-profit. The idea that all corporations must maximize profits is simply incorrect.
Re:Corporations are not allowed BY LAW to have mor (Score:2, Interesting)
There is no law that says a corporation or its CEO must maximise shareholder value / profits. Stop repeating this falsehood, or post the releveant law.
"this supposed imperative to “maximize” a company’s share price has no foundation in history or in law. Nor is there any empirical evidence that it makes the economy or the society better off. What began in the 1970s and ’80s as a useful corrective to self-satisfied managerial mediocrity has become a corrupting, self-interested dogma peddled by finance professors, money managers and over-compensated corporate executives."
"There are no statutes that put the shareholder at the top of the corporate priority list. In most states, corporations can be formed for any lawful purpose. Cornell University law professor Lynn Stout has been looking for years for a corporate charter that even mentions maximizing profits or share price. She hasn’t found one.
Nor does the law require, as many believe, that executives and directors owe a special fiduciary duty to shareholders. The fiduciary duty, in fact, is owed simply to the corporation, which is owned by no one, just as you and I are owned by no one — we are all “persons” in the eyes of the law. Shareholders, however, have a contractual claim to the “residual value” of the corporation once all its other obligations have been satisfied — and even then directors are given wide latitude to make whatever use of that residual value they choose, as long they’re not stealing it for themselves." [1]
TL;DR: You're wrong, and so is everyone else who spouts the same non-sense.
[1]: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8146/are-u-s-companies-legally-obligated-to-maximize-profits-for-shareholders (2nd answer)