The second is freedom of expression: Who appointed Apple the globe’s moral arbiter?
I left an e-mail request for official comment on an Apple website. Two days later, a Canadian representative called me to say that she could not comment.
Earlier this year, an Apple vice-president told The New York Times that the Playboy and SI apps had been approved because they were the work of a “well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format.” Denmark’s Gyldendal was founded in 1770 – not exactly fly-by-night.
This latest instance of de facto censorship has ignited a firestorm of protest in Denmark. Last week, Uffe Elbaek, the country’s culture minister, wrote to his European counterparts, and to European Union commissioners Neelie Kroes and Androulla Vassiliou, seeking to have the issue debated within the EU.
“This is a history book,” Elbaek said in an interview. “It documents how we behaved in those days. Is it fair that an American company without any real dialogue … can apply American moral standards to a product that only interests a Danish audience with vastly different moral standards?”
