> Ironically enough, Google is one of the few major tech companies that can't be compelled to hand over information to China.

Interestingly enough, Google gets bashed most on HN than all the other companies in this list combined.

And Apple get lauded for its privacy efforts. If you point out the hypocrisy, you quickly get down voted.

There is some difference though. You can turn off iCloud and then device lock an Apple phone and make it rather secure. No such option exists for an Android phone. I agree with your general idea though, but I want to nuance. Apple gets too much credit for their privacy efforts, and Google gets too little shit.

Apples efforts only look good compared to Amazon, Google and Microsoft, but that's because they are so bad.

Android does not have an iCloud equivalent, so naturally Android is not going to have a setting to disable sharing cloud data with the Chinese government. Google Drive doesn't work in China because Google isn't kowtowing the way Apple is.

Both are PRISM partners so meh.

Just a small correction, Facebook is also not in China, IIRC.

It lead to some truly fantastic moments with Zuck grandstanding while every other company was being bashed for bowing down to China last year. Truly bizarro world.

The subsidiaries of these companies are subject to the intelligence law and whatever data these subsidiaries owns. If apple keeps US data away from the apple subsidiary in China then Apple is physically impossible to hand the data to Chinese government

Apple keeps data in China. [1] They specifically made the move because of China's National Intelligence Law. [2]

>To comply with the law, for instance, Apple announced that it would transfer the operation of iCloud in Mainland China to a government-sponsored data company named Guizhou-Cloud Big Data.

[1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/apple-privacy...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Internet_Security_Law#Ef...

Yes, but they only store data in China for Chinese customers (as per the registered region of the Apple ID). [1]

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208351

Right, which is still Apple complying with the Chinese National Intelligence Law and giving up private customer data to the Chinese government.

This is effectively what TikTok is (claims to be) doing as well https://www.bytedance.com/en/#corporate-structure