5 ms·

That’s probably as a result of Apple’s compliance department action. It’s technically Apple who bans the accounts but it’s the US government who makes them to

by mrtksn 5y ago

That’s probably as a result of Apple’s compliance department action. It’s technically Apple who bans the accounts but it’s the US government who makes them to do so. Essentially, there are people and places that US government prohibits US companies to do business with. Not only US companies actually, anyone who wants to do business with US. Syria, North Korea, Crimea, Belarus, Cuba etc. are terrible addresses to open an account with. If you remember, Github banned Syrian developers.[0] [0] : https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/29/github-ban-sanctioned-countries https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/29/github-ban-sanctioned-coun...

pc86 5y ago
I find it hard to believe that despite whatever sanctions may be in place, the official stance of the USG is that individual Belarusians should be targeted in this manner.
molind 5y ago
But there is no sanctions against all citizens of Belarus. Yes some companies that support regime of lukashenko are under sanctions. But not everyone. I moved from Belarus due to lawfulness in my country, living in Poland and now I’m under sanctions? That’s insane.
- kube-system 5y ago
  Are there sanctions against Belarusian banks or other institutions which are necessary to functionally do business with people in Belarus?
- sremani 5y ago
  Insane probably, but there is always going to be some friction and gap between policy and implementation. It is good to inquire and understand where the gaps are. You are doing the right thing but shining the sun light and trying to recruit people to make your case is good. Let's see how Apple reacts.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  Could be specific address or name, we would not know since the match in the list is not disclosed. It can also be false positive, the compliance departments use specialized software do a non-exact match since it’s not a straightforward process because countries use different alphabets, address systems, naming conventions etc. So they identify potential risky clients and someone does an assessment and if they think that it could be a real match they pull the trigger. Sometimes your names is Ahmad, other times it’s Yuri and and the life is not easy for you.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    To add, Apple got in trouble when it did only do an exact match: https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-settles-allegations-of-u-s-sanctions-violations-11574728054 https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-settles-allegations-of-u-... > On the day Mr. Stjepanovic and SIS were blacklisted, Apple ran the new designations against its app developer account holder names. But the company’s sanctions-screening tool failed to identify SIS as a blacklisted entity because Apple’s system listed the company as “SIS DOO,” rather than “SIS d.o.o” on OFAC’s list, according to the agreement.
- nootropicat 5y ago
  The supreme irony is that these sanctions also apply to political dissidents than had to run away from Belarus. Corporate cost benefit analysis applied to shoddily written laws leads to unintended consequences.
  - codechad 5y ago
- ergocoder 5y ago
  This could be specific name. Think in terms of apple employees. If you over blacklist, then okay that is not ok. That is bad. If you decide to under-blacklist, you might actually end up in jail for a long time. So, over blacklisting it is.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lvs 5y ago
There are both US and EU sanctions on Belarusian individuals and entities, but no broad sanctions that would apply to all developers in the country of which I'm aware. This seems like it might be an error.
- detaro 5y ago
  Or calculation that it's cheaper to just get rid of Belarus-linked accounts than getting into trouble for a few that are linked to a sanctioned entity.
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    Yes, seems like it's a crackdown on Belorussians incorporating in Western Europe. My guess is that they looked at it and considered to be a risk. Maybe an incident like oligarch moving money through sham iAP drew attention to it? Who knows.
dijit 5y ago
One of the games I made was hosted by my company, it’s sequel was on cloud. Was annoying because Crimea was not allowed to connect to the cloud, but we sold our game there as it was part of Ukraine/Russia and there are no trade embargo’s from my publishers country to theirs. So the situation was that people who were able to play the first game were able to buy but not play the sequel, which must have been frustrating as hell- and it’s not like the citizens did anything to warrant that. That was annoying, we need European cloud providers really.

by mrtksn 5y ago

pc86 5y ago

I find it hard to believe that despite whatever sanctions may be in place, the official stance of the USG is that individual Belarusians should be targeted in this manner.

molind 5y ago

But there is no sanctions against all citizens of Belarus. Yes some companies that support regime of lukashenko are under sanctions. But not everyone. I moved from Belarus due to lawfulness in my country, living in Poland and now I’m under sanctions? That’s insane.

kube-system 5y ago
Are there sanctions against Belarusian banks or other institutions which are necessary to functionally do business with people in Belarus?
sremani 5y ago
Insane probably, but there is always going to be some friction and gap between policy and implementation. It is good to inquire and understand where the gaps are. You are doing the right thing but shining the sun light and trying to recruit people to make your case is good. Let's see how Apple reacts.
mrtksn 5y ago
Could be specific address or name, we would not know since the match in the list is not disclosed. It can also be false positive, the compliance departments use specialized software do a non-exact match since it’s not a straightforward process because countries use different alphabets, address systems, naming conventions etc. So they identify potential risky clients and someone does an assessment and if they think that it could be a real match they pull the trigger. Sometimes your names is Ahmad, other times it’s Yuri and and the life is not easy for you.
- judge2020 5y ago
  To add, Apple got in trouble when it did only do an exact match: https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-settles-allegations-of-u-s-sanctions-violations-11574728054 https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-settles-allegations-of-u-... > On the day Mr. Stjepanovic and SIS were blacklisted, Apple ran the new designations against its app developer account holder names. But the company’s sanctions-screening tool failed to identify SIS as a blacklisted entity because Apple’s system listed the company as “SIS DOO,” rather than “SIS d.o.o” on OFAC’s list, according to the agreement.
nootropicat 5y ago
The supreme irony is that these sanctions also apply to political dissidents than had to run away from Belarus. Corporate cost benefit analysis applied to shoddily written laws leads to unintended consequences.
- codechad 5y ago
ergocoder 5y ago
This could be specific name. Think in terms of apple employees. If you over blacklist, then okay that is not ok. That is bad. If you decide to under-blacklist, you might actually end up in jail for a long time. So, over blacklisting it is.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

lvs 5y ago

There are both US and EU sanctions on Belarusian individuals and entities, but no broad sanctions that would apply to all developers in the country of which I'm aware. This seems like it might be an error.

detaro 5y ago
Or calculation that it's cheaper to just get rid of Belarus-linked accounts than getting into trouble for a few that are linked to a sanctioned entity.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  Yes, seems like it's a crackdown on Belorussians incorporating in Western Europe. My guess is that they looked at it and considered to be a risk. Maybe an incident like oligarch moving money through sham iAP drew attention to it? Who knows.

dijit 5y ago

One of the games I made was hosted by my company, it’s sequel was on cloud. Was annoying because Crimea was not allowed to connect to the cloud, but we sold our game there as it was part of Ukraine/Russia and there are no trade embargo’s from my publishers country to theirs. So the situation was that people who were able to play the first game were able to buy but not play the sequel, which must have been frustrating as hell- and it’s not like the citizens did anything to warrant that. That was annoying, we need European cloud providers really.