GoKunming Forums

VPN off the apple app store

BlueBird (55 posts) • 0

Now here is (perhaps old) news, Apple has agreed to remove VPN apps from its store in China Market. Share your thoughts

BlueBird (55 posts) • 0

Rumours are, even Google wants to make its way back to China Market (its new CEO) and is considering to fully obey (this time) the censure policy. Point is restrictions are getting way to serious.

PS: do not update your windows 10 (unlike me) cause Windows store as well has set restrictions for VPN so you might get surprised why your current VPN isn't working any longer or why when you download a new VPN will show you: The service is unavailable in your area.

From what i saw (and still researching), only certain telecommunication companies will be granted VPN service usage (upon review and consideration of course).

JanJal (1243 posts) • +1

@BlueBird: "Rumours are, even Google wants to make its way back to China Market"

I don't know which rumour you refer to, but last year Google confirmed that it was running a research program (codename Dragonfly) that aimed to re-enter the market with a version of it's search engine that would adhere to Chinese requirements. Official information from Google stated that this was in very early stages.

However, they killed that program due to resistance from within their own organization, after also receiving criticism from outsiders, among them US politicians and military personnel.

It is of course more than rumour that Google, FB, and all others WANT TO enter the market, but few are ready to pay the costs.

Against Baidu, Tencent and other "Chinese" companies they are looking at heavy competition for a market share in China, while risking backslash from their main markets in west.

Also I think that they need to keep in mind, that while China offers a big market in numbers of internet users, it's much smaller when you include the disposable income of these users to the equation.

These companies can leech much less from average individual here, and that extends to what advertisers are willing to pay.

Ishmael (462 posts) • -1

Need for VPN is disgusting and has been from the beginning. Corporations which cater to infocontrol schemes by governments or others are disgusting as well. Authoritarianism is not effectively combated by weaseling for profit, as weasels care little for the victims of authoritarianism. Rant.

Ishmael (462 posts) • 0

Something wrong with stated times of posts - it is now 7:05PM Jan. 30 in Thailand, or 8:05pm in China. My post above was entered maybe 7-8 minutes ago, not "about 16 hours ago", as it appears on my computer now.

JanJal (1243 posts) • +2

Well, need for VPNs is a two-sided coin.

Yes, you have restrictive regimes that require little people to use VPNs to access information.

But you also have corporations and governments depending on similar technologies to protect themselves (and their citizens) from competition and violations from their peers, as well as from crooks among the same little people home and abroad.

Related forum threads

Login to post