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Apple’s Anti-Counterfeiting Efforts in Asia Hampered by Uncooperative Authorities

From MacRumors (h/t Manuel Lora). The post notes: “The reports note that Apple’s efforts have been led by vice president for global security John Theriault, a former FBI special agent and Pfizer vice president who was hired by Apple after he led a campaign against production of counterfeit prescription drugs.”

So, Apple has hired a former Big Pharma exec and state police thug to enforce its monopoly privileges around the world. Shades of mercantalism!

Apple’s Anti-Counterfeiting Efforts in Asia Hampered by Uncooperative Authorities

CNN reportson details of Apple’s anti-counterfeiting efforts centered in China, noting that the company has had difficulty winning the cooperation of Chinese authorities to investigate and shut down those responsible for the fake Apple products. The details were revealed in documents from U.S. diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks last week.

The technology giant eventually organized a team in March 2008 to curtail the explosion of knockoff iPods and iPhones, according to an electronic memo from the Beijing embassy dated September 2008.

Yet, three years after Apple moved to crack down on widespread counterfeiting and put pressure on China, progress has been slow. Gadget piracy isn’t a high priority for the Chinese government, the U.S. reports and experts say.

The reports note that Apple’s efforts have been led by vice president for global security John Theriault, a former FBI special agent and Pfizer vice president who was hired by Apple after he led a campaign against production of counterfeit prescription drugs. Theriault was joined at Apple by his Pfizer associate Don Shruhan, who now serves as a director with Apple’s security team in Hong Kong.

Despite putting the anti-counterfeiting task force together, Apple has had only limited success as Chinese authorities have been reluctant to respond to Apple’s requests for assistance. Apple has tried to convince authorities to take a more active role by citing the potential dangers of exploding batteries in counterfeit products and the loss of tax revenue associated with the knockoff products, but Chinese authorities have cited their own reasons for not pursuing the claims.

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To the extent possible under law, Stephan Kinsella has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to C4SIF. This work is published from: United States. In the event the CC0 license is unenforceable a  Creative Commons License Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License is hereby granted.