Companies cannot really stand up to governments. Unless another government gets involved, Apple will have to follow UK law if they want to keep doing business in that country.

By the way, the US is not a stranger to that kind of overreach, either (e.g. CLOUD act).

> Companies cannot really stand up to governments.

That’s only valid for non-US companies or the US or Chinese government

A large part of what enables huge multinational companies like Apple to be successful and resist stuff like this is a friendly administration and threats by the largest economy in the world.

Apple is being sufficiently friendly with the current administration that lawmakers are going to go to bat for them and prevent this sort of stuff from happening. Apple is a pawn on a global stage and the governments are the true players. It’s always been this way, it’s just more obvious now. The big sea change has been the last four years big tech has been a target of its own government as well as foreign governments. That’s largely why you’ve seen big tech jump ship to a political party that better serves their interests and doesn’t constantly investigate them. I’m not being political here, it’s just a fact of life.

Apple is going to be protected as they bent the knee and kissed the ring, just look at the name of the large Gulf to the southeast of the United States in Apple Maps.

The official name in the GNIS for that body of water is the Gulf of America. So what name should Apple and Google Maps use for US users?

What do the map companies call the Islas Malvinas? Or the East Sea? How about the Gulf of California? Or the Sea of Cortez? How about Mt Everest?

If a Mexican mapping tech company wants to call it the Gulf of Mexico, that’s their right.

Whatabout.

Apple’s market cap is greater than UK’s GDP. Giant companies have a long tradition of flouting British authority.

market cap is not comparable to GDP. GDP is comparable to value added or profit.

Apple doesn’t need the UK business, but many people will get upset if their iPhone stops working.

That’s pretty big leverage.

> their iPhone stops working

Reminds of when UK regulator blocked Microsoft from buying Activision.

It was suggested by some that Microsoft has lots of power of UK and can threaten to pull out of UK and disable every single Windows PC and server in UK and destroy data belonging to UK businesses held in Azure, etc.

Shame it didn't happen, would have loved the reaction from Macron/French/EU given their hatred of US big tech.

> Apple doesn’t need the UK business,

I think shareholders would disagree. Several billion in sales and all assets in the UK are not insignificant. On top if that would be the reaction of other governments to seeing a business successfully defy a government. ait could be them next.

>That’s pretty big leverage.

True and it shows how foolish governments are to allow such reliance on foreign suppliers.

But how would shareholders react if Apple complies?

I mean apple could just sell unlocked phones that work in any country, and let people smuggle them in however they want.

Apple just happens to operate their buisness in a way that's very vulnerable to government overreach. Their OS is dependent on centralized, easily firewalled services. They have a lot of brick and mortar stores, and so on.

I believe that corporations can operate paralegally when need be.