10.28.10
The High Price of an Apple and the Cost of Name Monopolies (Trademarks)
Summary: News about Apple in China and Facebook in the United States
AST WEEK we wrote about Apple's latest Foxconn controversy, which was long coming and nothing especially new. When is it acceptable to criticise a company for overcharging for a computer while paying meager amounts of money to overworked sweat shop prisoners, some of whom are children? “iPhones, MacBooks sicken Chinese women,” The Register reported yesterday. This is apparently something quite unique:
Chinese workers assembling Apple laptops and iPhones are being sickened by a particularly nasty industrial chemical, n-hexane, according to a report.
“I think they knew it was poisonous to human bodies, but if they had used another chemical our output would not have increased,” one woman told a reporter from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “By using n-hexane, it was much more efficient.”
In other news from the name day in China (AFP), “Apple [is] accused of copyright infringement in China” and to quote the opening portions:
US high-tech giant Apple has been accused in China of copyright infringement, with a computer screen maker saying it owns the rights to the iPad name in the country, a report said Wednesday.
Proview Technology Co., Ltd., which is based in the southern city of Shenzhen, registered the iPad trademark in January 2000 and still owns the rights to its use in China, the Beijing News said, citing government archives.
Facebook too has just developed trademark zealotry, but that’s another story:
It’s not the first time Facebook has prevented a social networking site from using a related name. Facebook sued Teachbook in August, saying that the site’s use of the word “book” was in violation of its Trademark. Facebook considers uses of the words “book” and “face” its property. Facebook said Faceporn’s concept is too similar as well.
Facebook said that Faceporn ” blatantly copied the Facebook logo, site, and Wall trademark,” said court documents. In screen shots included with the court filings, Faceporn does have elements that are similar to Facebook such as a Wall and a blue and white design. Although users can’t poke one another, they can “send a flirt.”
Facebook has requested that Faceporn creator Thomas Pederson surrender the domain name and all revenue from it to Facebook.
The nerve they have…
Facebook is somewhat of an extension of Microsoft (which also practically owns part of Facebook). Facebook only/mostly exploits Free software and uses it to advance Microsoft’s agenda a lot of the time, as we’ve demonstrated before. █
