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Under-fire Apple removes 25,000 apps in China
BEIJING, Aug 20, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Apple said Monday it had removed many
gambling-related apps from its Chinese app store as the US giant comes under
scrutiny amid trade tensions between Beijing and Washington.
Apple removed 25,000 apps suspected of facilitating gambling and illegal
lotteries, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Sunday, emphasising there was
still work to be done.
“Reporters have discovered even after the Apple company’s large-scale
repairs, loopholes still exist,” said CCTV anchor Chang Xiao.
A CCTV report last month accused the company of allowing illegal gambling
apps to proliferate.
“We have already removed many apps and developers for trying to distribute
illegal gambling apps on our App Store, and we are vigilant in our efforts to
find these and stop them from being on the App Store,” the company said in a
statement.
With the rhetoric between Washington and Beijing heating up, China’s state
media has probed for deficiencies in Apple’s China operations.
Another state media report last month tore into Apple for what it claimed
was inadequate filtering of messages sent through its iMessage service.
The app store clearance did little to abate the criticism from CCTV.
“With the help of the Apple platform, the (gambling app operators) can
directly profit,” a law professor was quoted as saying in the latest CCTV
segment, adding it was Apple’s responsibility not only to remove the apps
from the store but to cut off access from phones to which they have been
downloaded.
China is one of Apple’s largest markets, accounting for roughly 20 percent
of its revenue last year. CEO Tim Cook has spent much time in recent years
courting authorities.
But Apple’s major market presence as the trade battle rages has placed its
products front and centre for criticism.
Apple has taken several steps to satisfy Chinese regulators, including
this summer transferring control of Chinese user data to a state-owned
company.
The move was met by criticism from some rights groups and even Chinese
users worried about data privacy.
Apple also upset rights groups last year when it restricted its Chinese
customers’ access to Virtual Private Networks, which allow users to
circumvent China’s Great Firewall and to access blocked websites such as
Facebook, Twitter and The New York Times.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 1806 hrs