Anger as Apple axes China anti-firewall app

"Apple has a long history of kowtowing to Chinese censors. It's an amoral company, chasing profits above all else."
BBC News

OpenDoor's app helps users bypass firewalls to access restricted web sites

Apple says developers must conform to Chinese laws

Chinese web users have criticised Apple after the company pulled an iPhone app which enabled users to bypass firewalls and access restricted internet sites.
The developers of the free app, OpenDoor, reportedly wrote to Apple protesting against the move.
China blocks users from accessing many websites and strictly polices internet access and censors web users.
The BBC contacted Apple for its response to the report and has yet to receive a reply.
Apple asks iPhone app developers to ensure that their apps "comply with all legal requirements in any location where they are made available to users".
It says that "developers have an obligation to understand and conform to all local laws".
But Zhou Shuguang, a prominent Chinese blogger and citizen journalist, told US-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.
Chinese internet users were disappointed by the move by Apple.
One said: "It was so bad that this was taken away. I can't now jump over the firewall."
Another user wrote: "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."
Many Chinese social media users have only just become aware that the app has been unavailable since July.
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".
The station reported that the email from OpenDoor to Apple said the removal of the app was inconsistent.
"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," the email says.
"Using the same definition, wouldn't all browser apps, including Apple's own Safari and Google's Chrome, include illegal contents?"
OpenDoor is not the first app to have been removed from Apple's App Store in China.
It has previously removed a news app by a US-based television broadcaster founded by the outlawed Falun Gong group.
Another app, which enables users to access books banned in China, was also withdrawn.
China has 591 million internet users, according to the latest official figures from China Internet Network Information Centre.
Among them, 464 million accessed the net via smart phones or other wireless devices.

Apple bans anti-firewall app, once again doing the bidding of China's authoritarian rulers

By Preston Gralla

Apple, which built its reputation on selling products that it claims lets its customers to "think different," once again is doing the bidding of China's authoritarian rulers, pulling an app from the App Store because it allows people to evade China's infamous Great Firewall. When will Apple's fans recognize that the company cares about profits first, and freedom last?

The BBC reports that Apple pulled the OpenDoor app from the App store. The app allows people to evade firewalls, primarily those erected by authoritarian governments. The BBC says that Zhou Shuguang, a prominent Chinese blogger and citizen journalist, says that the software has been used by Chinese Internet users to get around the government's restrictive Great Firewall.

The BBC also quotes a Chinese Internet user as saying:

"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."

The developers of OpenDoor told Radio Netherlands that of the app's 800,000 total downloads before it was pulled, about a third were from China. It is also used in other countries that restrict Internet access, including Iran and Pakistan.

The developers said that until the app was banned, approximately 2,000 Chinese users a day were downloading it. Apple pulled the app and then didn't tell the developers, the developers claim. They add that when they contacted Apple asking why the app was banned, at first Apple didn't respond. Eventually, they say, Apple told them that their app "includes content that is illegal in China."

Apple didn't say what the content is. That's because the app has no "content." It's merely a way to allow people to bypass firewalls such as those in place in China, Iran, and Pakistan. A Chinese Internet expert, who wished to remain anonymous, told Radio Netherlands that with this latest action, "the censorship of Apple has reached a whole new level."

Apple has a long history of kowtowing to Chinese censors. In 2010, the New York Times reported:

Apple's iTunes service still forbids Chinese users from downloading certain applications that refer to the Dalai Lama and the Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer.

Banning apps that refer to the Dalai Lama are particularly ironic, given that in Apple's famous "Think Different" campaign extolling rebels and freethinkers, Apple used a photo of the Dalai Lama to hype its products -- you can see the ad, below. In those days, though, there wasn't much money to be made in China. Today there is. So goodbye Dalai Lama. 

Apple has also banned a number of apps from its China app store, including a news app by a U.S. television broadcaster founded by members of Falun Gong, a religion that China has declared a "heretical organization," and an app that lets people read banned books about Tibet by Wang Lixiong.

There's no doubt that Apple makes very nice products. But it's an amoral company, chasing profits above all else, despite the image that many of its fans have about it. Just this week, Apple passed Coca Cola to become the world's most valuable brand. If more people knew the truth about the company's actions, maybe the Apple name wouldn't be worth quite so much.