That’s a false dichotomy.

Another choice, however unpalatable to all parties, would have been for Apple to stop doing business in the UK.

Why do pro-privacy tech folks on here act like Apple is some charity? Apple is a business. It won't fight a citizen's fight on your behalf. It is on citizens to use their democratic power to ensure their representatives act as the voting base wants. Apple's goal is to make money. The government is a representation of your will.

> Apple is a business. It won't fight a citizen's fight on your behalf.

Being a business does not remove ethical considerations. And I’m an environment where corporations are considered people, it seems reasonable to expect some degree of alignment with normal citizens.

> Apple's goal is to make money. The government is a representation of your will.

The government is increasingly not a representation of the collective will, and is instead captured by those corporations.

I can’t help but feel the “but they exist to make money” line too often ignores the many ways this is not a sufficiently complex explanation of the situation.

Corporations are people in the legal sense not in any other philosophical way. Just like non-humans proposed for personhood, they are not entities expected to behave ethically. Like a dog, you set rules and apply punishments when they breach it. You don't argue ethics with a dog because they are not relevant to them

> where corporations are considered people,

People always get this wrong. Corporations are not people. They just have certain rights like owning property. Corporate personhood != full personhood.

lol. It literally does. This is a great example. You believe this is an ethical issue. Other shareholders (you are a shareholder, right?) could disagree and now there is a lawsuit. “Complying with national law” seems like an easy win for them.

Because while a business goal is to make money, it is not necessarily, unlike what you have 80% of the people here believe, to make the most money possible. Ethics can exist in businesses too.

This, plus privacy is in Apple's brand. Without this and other Apple-esque things (lack of bloatware etc.) you may as well get a Samsung for 2/3 price.

> Why do pro-privacy tech folks on here act like Apple is some charity...

Because Apple marketing keeps relentlessly bashing their customers skull that privacy is their advantage?

See my other reply.

They could also sell the entire business to Google. Why bother with listing options even worse for everyone involved?

I mean they could have tried not complying, and fighting a lawsuit at the ECHR (right of every person to a private life). Takes money and time but more attractive than the other options.

It's less attractive, riskier, and more costly of a decision for Apple. Apple is a corporation, not an altruist.

This play by Apple applies pressure to the UK government indirectly via its citizens, for free, rather than taking the risk and expenses of a lawsuit.

> would have been for Apple to stop doing business in the UK

Apple employes thousands of people in the UK. I really don't see any practical way they could have done that.

They could

They could pull out of the UK, and to hell with the consequences, but then if the EU decide to do the same thing, or the US, or China says "hold my beer", then the problem becomes much larger.

Losing the UK market wouldn't impact Apple that much - it'd be a hit to the stock, of course, but as a fraction of worldwide business, it isn't that huge. Larger markets would be a bigger issue.

I’m full in on Apple and hoped they nuked iCloud in the UK for this rather than compromise the product.

This is still better than a back door but it sets an awful precedent.

When UK demanded a backdoor to e2ee in iMessage, Apple told them they’d rather get out of UK. Why not do the same here? You’re posing a false dichotomy.

> Apple told them they’d rather get out of UK

To my knowledge, Apple has always said that their response would be to withdraw affected services rather than break encryption.

> Apple has said planned changes to British surveillance laws could affect iPhone users’ privacy by forcing it to withdraw security features, which could ultimately lead to the closure of services such as FaceTime and iMessage in the UK.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/20/uk-survei...

True! Thanks for the correction.

IMO they could’ve categorized the whole iCloud service as “affected” and disable all of it.

My guess is that the order they received would have only effected encrypted device backups, at least so far.

Users in the UK do still have the option to perform an encrypted backup to their local PC or Mac.

What would that change, effectively, other than have Apple lose money?

The UK would still lose ADP (and then also just Apple products in general). A precedent would still be set.

Your posing a strictly worse third option. Sure, it's an option, I guess. Apple could also just close down globally, as a fourth option. Or sell off to Google as a fifth. But I was trying to present the least-bad option (turn off ADP), rather than an exhaustive list.

I totally get your point, but calling the UK's bluff could work. Are they really willing to ban Apple products in the UK? Maybe, maybe not

Depends on if the US emperor and his cronies have the UK's backs on this issue. If they don't, calling the bluff would work, there's zero chance the UK gov would ban Apple products without US approval. The backlash among the public would be far worse than the TikTok ban. Imagine all companies using Macs. The order of power here is US > Apple > UK.