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Medicine The Almighty Buck Apple

Apple To Donate Profit Portion From Black Friday For AIDS Fight 102

Posted by samzenpus from the finding-the-cure dept.
An anonymous reader writes Apple will donate a portion of their sales from online and retail stores on Cyber Monday and Black Friday as a contribution to the worldwide fight against AIDS. Apple kicks off a two-week fundraising campaign for RED, the charity started by U2 lead singer Bono and Bobby Shriver. It includes 25 partnering app-makers, from Angry Birds to Toca Boca, which will donate all proceeds from purchases of their apps or in-app upgrades. In a statement, Apple CEO Tim Cook said: "Apple is a proud supporter of (RED) because we believe the gift of life is the most important gift anyone can give. For eight years, our customers have been helping fight AIDS in Africa by funding life-saving treatments which are having a profoundly positive impact. This year we are launching our biggest fundraising push yet with the participation of Apple's retail and online stores, and some of the brightest minds in the App Store are lending their talents to the effort as well."
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Apple To Donate Profit Portion From Black Friday For AIDS Fight More

Apple To Donate Profit Portion From Black Friday For AIDS Fight

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  • But there are a lot of very unglamorous diseases that kill more people every year. And that's my problem with these celebrity causes: they're mostly for show. A portion of profits; that is to say, just enough money that the goodwill advertising can make it back up again.

    • Yeah, but how many of those are going to draw in the kind of idiots that shop on black Friday.

      N.B. Please don't respond and give your "totally sound" reasons for shopping on black Friday, you're mistaken.

      • What's your problem with shopping on Black Friday? Do you draw a distinction between shopping on-line vs in-store?

        (Me, I'm usually grateful to have a grocery store open the morning of Thanksgiving (for last-minute stuff I forgot) and Black Friday (to replenish whatever I ran out of); I could give up the latter without too much pain. I do bargain-shop on Black Friday, but only on-line, which feels like a reasonable way to minimize impact on retail-type people)

        • So you're minimizing the impact on retail-type people by shopping online, which effectively makes them obsolete and unneeded. I kind of say this in a joking way, but I too do a lot of online shopping. It's just easier. Why would I want to go out to the store, when I can order it from the comfort of my living room and have it delivered in a few days. That isn't to say we don't need any retail. I still like to have physical grocery stores, because even next day delivery is too long, and it's very convenient

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by blueg3 ( 192743 )

        Please don't respond and give your "totally sound" reasons for shopping on black Friday, you're mistaken.

        Our friendly local gaming store is running game demos (and unstructured try-before-you-buy) and giving out coffee Friday morning. The owner encouraged us to come by.

        What am I mistaken about?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Now that Tim Cooke is out, he has to use his corporation's profits to donate to AIDS charities or the gay mafia with throw him out of the club.

    • not even that, they are doing it as a tax writeoff. notice they get the credit for making the donation, not you (who is paying for it)

      • Why would you get a tax writeoff for buying something? They're the one donating their part of the transaction, not you.

        • let me clarify what I mean

          They are using the idea of donating to AIDS research with the money you used to buy X. Now some people who were not planning to buy X will see this and think "oh look, they are donating for AIDS on everything we buy today, we should buy something to help!"

          On the other hand people who were going to buy, but maybe not on friday see it and say "oh boy, if we buy this a few weeks early, we will be helping support AIDS research!"

          This is nothing more than using social engineerin

          • I think you're really grasping at straws. Note that Apple is donating all of the proceeds to charity. It's kind of hard to make a profit in volume when you're losing money on each individual sale.

            • as i said im not calling out apple here, im just explaining how things work. for the record I currently take care of retail stores cash registers, I hear about all sorts of tricks when it comes to getting people to buy stuff from these stores i take care of

            • Note that Apple is donating all of the proceeds to charity. It's kind of hard to make a profit in volume when you're losing money on each individual sale.

              Note that Apple is not donating all the proceeds to charity, as the headline suggets ("profit portion") but in fact a portion of profits. I am not new here so I am not surprised you have not read TFA but in fact the truth is that 100% of the profits from 25 apps will be donated, while a portion of the profits from Apple retail locations will be donated. Congratulations to ZDNet, they fooled you completely with that headline. Sucker.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by geekoid ( 135745 )

        You don't really understand how taxes and tax write offs work, do you?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MikeMo ( 521697 )
        You do understand that a tax write-off only allows you to decrease your tax burden by a partial percentage of the donation? For example, if they donate $1,000, their burden is decreased by $260 (using their advertised US tax rate of 26%). So, it is nice on the tax side, but it still costs then $740 net.

        It's not like it's free money.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      So what? They are giving money to help fund the finding for a cure of a disease. Why isn't that good enough? Would you rather nothing was given?
      Is you life so disappointing to you that you need to attack groups that are trying to do some good?

    • But there are a lot of very unglamorous diseases that kill more people every year.

      Yes, but in southern Africa the AIDS prevalence rate between 15-25%, and those numbers go UP when juvenile cases are counted. It's "glamorous" because in Africa it's a pandemic comparable to the great 14th century plagues of Europe.

  • A good deed will never go unpunished (Score:3)

    by Camembert ( 2891457 ) on Monday November 24, 2014 @10:55AM (#48448907)
    So much negativity and cynicism here.
    Would there be a similar /. backlash if, say, Ubuntu would do a similar effort this week?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

      It is nice but doing it this way give the tax break to Apple and gives them free PR.
      If they just cut the price by the amount and if people gave the money to the Charity of choice then the customer would get the tax break.

      Over all it is a good thing because most of the people would probably just pocket the savings.

      • So your complaint is that Apple doesn't give you a tax deduction?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

          My complaint is that no one seems to read anymore.
          As I said over all I think this is a good idea.
          You sir are seeking offense when none was intended or given.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by s.petry ( 762400 )

      So much negativity and cynicism here. Would there be a similar /. backlash if, say, Ubuntu would do a similar effort this week?

      Why yes, yes there would be similar backlash. Funny how you attempt to paint realism as "negativity and cynicism" prior to asking your question. This is called poisoning the well, shame on you!

      The realism I'm referring to is that people are against the use of suffering as a propaganda tool. People are against the deception in advertising, such as "Apple To Donate Profit Portion" which is intentionally misleading in the headline and should read "Apple to donate a portion of profit". Save the excuse about

      • The person that wrote the title is a professional writer, they know how words work.

        From what I have seen pass the "Editors" at Slashdot, I wouldn't bet on either clauses of your statement being true.

        This is a Tech-Blog; not the Wall Street Journal, nor the New York Times. If you're looking for examples of erudite journalism, you've come to the wrong genre.

    • It's the internet. There's always going to be some small amount of trolling a crap posts. If Ubuntu started a project to donate to animal shelters someone would post about how cats are worthless and someone should just snap all of their necks. I'm surprised there wasn't another GNAA (or whatever the derivative spam post actually is now) posted to the thread as it seems to have been cropping up a lot.

    • Would there be a similar /. backlash if, say, Ubuntu would do a similar effort this week?

      [cynicism...en-gage] Canonical would probably invent a new disease rather than just use an existing one! ;)

  • It will be interesting to see if Apple becomes more charitable under Cook. Jobs was pretty stingy that way (very stingy in his perosnal life, but I think Apple unde rhim did do a few charitable contributions)

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