Apple Inc on Monday came under fire for sending Web browsing data, including IP addresses, to China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊), the latest criticism of how the company operates in the world’s most populous nation.
For about two years, Apple has been sending data to Tencent as part of an iPhone and iPad security feature that warns users if a Web site is malicious or unsafe before they load it.
The US firm checks addresses against an existing list of sites known to be problematic. That list is maintained by Tencent for users in China and Google for other regions.
In newer versions of Apple’s iOS, the company says this feature “may also log your IP address,” potentially providing Tencent, a Chinese Internet conglomerate with government ties, data such as a user’s location.
The safe browsing feature with Google was first added to iOS in 2008, but it was expanded to include Tencent in iOS 11 in 2017. Apple updated its description of the feature in more recent versions of iOS.
It is not the first time that Apple has been criticized for working with a Chinese company to handle local data. Last year, Apple partnered with Guizhou-Cloud Big Data (雲上貴州大數據) to store iCloud data for users in China.
Apple has also been scrutinized for appeasing China.
BuzzFeed has reported that Apple told creators of shows for its TV+ streaming service to avoid portraying China in a poor light.
The company also removed the Republic of China flag from the emoji keyboard on devices running in Hong Kong and Macau, after earlier pulling it from China.
It also came under fire for removing a maps app in Hong Kong that the developer said was designed to help users avoid areas of protest.
Apple said it was following local laws in both instances.
Apple said in a statement that the feature protects user privacy and safeguards people’s data.
The checks occur on the devices and the actual Web addresses are never shared with Tencent and Google, the safe browsing providers, it said, adding that the feature is on by default, but can be switched off.
The IP address of a device is shared when a Web site is found to be suspicious and a warning is sent.
Some users were concerned that data would be sent to Tencent globally because the firm is mentioned even on iPhones outside of China. Apple is likely to clarify this in a future version of iOS.
The feature can be disabled under the Privacy & Security section in the Settings app by tapping the “Fraudulent Website Warning” toggle.
If a user does that, IP addresses would not be shared, but Apple also would not be able to check Web sites against Tencent’s or Google’s lists.
OpenAI has warned US lawmakers that its Chinese rival DeepSeek (深度求索) is using unfair and increasingly sophisticated methods to extract results from leading US artificial intelligence (AI) models to train the next generation of its breakthrough R1 chatbot, a memo reviewed by Bloomberg News showed. In the memo, sent on Thursday to the US House of Representatives Select Committee on China, OpenAI said that DeepSeek had used so-called distillation techniques as part of “ongoing efforts to free-ride on the capabilities developed by OpenAI and other US frontier labs.” The company said it had detected “new, obfuscated methods” designed to evade OpenAI’s defenses
NEW IMPORTS: Car dealer PG Union Corp said it would consider introducing US-made models such as the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Stellantis’ RAM 1500 to Taiwan Tesla Taiwan yesterday said that it does not plan to cut its car prices in the wake of Washington and Taipei signing the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade on Thursday to eliminate tariffs on US-made cars. On the other hand, Mercedes-Benz Taiwan said it is planning to lower the price of its five models imported from the US after the zero tariff comes into effect. Tesla in a statement said it has no plan to adjust the prices of the US-made Model 3, Model S and Model X as tariffs are not the only factor the automaker uses to determine pricing policies. Tesla said
China’s top chipmaker has warned that breakaway spending on artificial intelligence (AI) chips is bringing forward years of future demand, raising the risk that some data centers could sit idle. “Companies would love to build 10 years’ worth of data center capacity within one or two years,” Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) cochief executive officer Zhao Haijun (趙海軍) said yesterday on a call with analysts. “As for what exactly these data centers will do, that hasn’t been fully thought through.” Moody’s Ratings projects that AI-related infrastructure investment would exceed US$3 trillion over the next five years, as developers pour eye-watering sums
Bank of America Corp nearly doubled its forecast for the nation’s economic growth this year, adding to a slew of upgrades even after a rip-roaring last year propelled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI). The firm lifted its projection to 8 percent from 4.5 percent on “relentless global demand” for the hardware that Taiwanese companies make, according to a note dated yesterday by analysts including Xiaoqing Pi (皮曉青). Taiwan’s GDP expanded 8.63 percent last year, the fastest pace since 2010. The increase “reflects our sustained optimism over Taiwan’s technology driven expansion and is reinforced by several recent developments,” including a more stable currency,
RSS