Tim Cook’s in trouble with the Feds. Uber and Airbnb fill made enemies,and the taxman is cracking down on tech firms the world over. The genuine world is catching up with Silicon ValleyLife for technology companies was once, as the Fast exhibit character used to say, and brilliant. They could make products and offer services worldwide and,especially in the software field, they would make money hand over fist; search for at businesses like Microsoft and Oracle in the 1990s. Oil spills, or environmental damage,government regulation – that was something for other sectors.
But with the rise of the internet, and companies’ ability to become not just transnational but supranational, and active everywhere yet arguing that their responsibilities belong nowhere,attitudes fill changed. Apple’s row with the FBI over access to a locked iPhone that belonged to the employer of one of the San Bernardino killers is just the latest example of technology businesses discovering that nothing they now enact is without consequences.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com