Apple's new 'private relay' feature will not be available in China

In a move that surprises nobody, Apple produce something that genuinely increases privacy for citizens, swiftly blocked by a government that denies freedom for its people.

I can't see how that can put a positive spin on this one, but I know they'll try.

So apple folded. Not surprised china uses this people’s info for nefarious purposes, they would not give that up.

Facebook and other co. Will use this as excuse to get back at apple.

Not surprised at all... in fact, I think most people were expecting this move by Apple considering that China is one of the biggest market and profit maker for Apple

So the way to know if something actually protects the privacy of the people using it is that it will not be available in China, so much for Apple's commitment to privacy.

This is nothing new..Apple is basically using a VPN. I have been using a VPN since they existed. I actually made/manage my own. A VPN with adblock gets you zero ads on any device you use, and also keeps everything you do private. Just don't log into Google Chrome because google can still track you.

OlympicSupport is spot on. It's just an OS-specific VPN. There has been a basic one built into the Opera browser for some time.

Way back when, Apple would monitor the small programs produced as shareware for the Mac OS. If anything was popular, they would roll the features into the next version of their OS. VPNs are popular so they are rolling the feature into their OS, taking a chunk of business away from the 3rd party VPN operators.

There are far more advanced ways of doing this via distributed networking, that cannot be blocked by dictatorships. You can even crowd-source VPN functionality by bouncing data off third party sites using a bit of code.

What comes next in tech is going to make GAFA look like a Model T Ford.