, Columnist
Don't Be Too Hard on Apple for Bending to China
By acceding to censorship now, the company and others like it will have the opportunity to fight another day.
Say cheese!
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Several weeks ago, while traveling in China, I couldn’t read Bloomberg View because the censor had blocked the website. But that didn’t stop me. I turned on my VPN -- virtual private network -- and connected by going around the Great Firewall. I could access Facebook, Twitter, Google and the New York Times the same way.
Unfortunately, in the past few weeks, the Chinese government has moved against such VPNs, most notably asking Apple Inc. to stop selling them through its app store. Apple acceded, and the response of the critics has been pretty sour.