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Several App Store Employees Fired in China for Accepting Free Meals and Nightclub Trips From Developers

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At least five employees who worked for the App Store in China have been fired for inappropriate conduct with developers and consultants, according to a report from The Information.

App-Store-Blue-Banner-Chinese-Flag-Feature.jpg

App Store employees with review and editorial roles are not supposed to meet with developers, but an internal audit raised suspicions about half a dozen workers, leading to an investigation. Apple found that the employees had accepted free meals and nightclub outings from developers and consultants that operate businesses claiming they can get games featured in the App Store.

The employees involved did not approve apps and would not have been able to get apps added to the App Store or removed from the App Store, but they did have the power to feature App Store apps to get them more views. It is not clear if the employees featured the apps of developers that they interacted with inappropriately.

In a statement, an Apple spokesperson said that Apple expects employees to abide by its business conduct policies.
"Without commenting on the specific allegations of this report, Apple expects its employees worldwide to abide by its very strong ethics and business conduct policies. We thoroughly investigate reports of improper conduct and when appropriate will not hesitate to take immediate action up to and including termination."
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According to former Apple employees, Apple aims to keep App Store employees and developers separate, and it also tries to limit interactions of different App Store departments to prevent confidential developer information from being shared and to limit the influence that developers have over employees.

The Information's report also details the firing of an App Store employee who allegedly sexually assaulted an employee at Mihoyo, the Chinese developer behind mobile game Genshin Impact. Additional detail on the App Store issue in China can be found in The Information's full article.

Article Link: Several App Store Employees Fired in China for Accepting Free Meals and Nightclub Trips From Developers
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/10/18/app-store-employees-fired-china/
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Let me ask you, have you ever went above the speed limit on highways? It’s illegal, but everyone (in lots of states) is doing it. Does it make it legal? No! But will you do it because it’s the “culture”? Yes! Can you get pulled over? Yes as well.

It’s the same, when it’s how businesses are operated by everyone in China, you tend to follow to not be the odd one out.

——

Well to be honest, it might be natural to think they are breaking business of conduct. That is given you lived in the western world.

And there is nothing wrong with Apple following what they believe and firing the employees.

But you do need to understand the culture and how people do business is very different in Asia. And maybe somethings western companies do would be considered inappropriate.

This is partially the cause of so many western companies’ failure in penetrating Asian market.
 
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CrysisDeu said:
Well to be honest, it might be natural to think they are breaking business of conduct. That is given you lived in the western world.

And there is nothing wrong with Apple following what they believe and firing the employees.

But you do need to understand the culture and how people do business is very different in Asia. And maybe somethings western companies do would be considered inappropriate.

This is partially the cause of so many western companies’ failure in penetrating Asian market.
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Oh give us a break, will you. Accepting bribes is not a cultural thing, it’s bad business everywhere.
 
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-DMN- said:
With Steve Ballmer in the background break dancing lol
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Oh man... it's iconic... there is still video of him on stage shouting Developers on Youtube. It's really amazing... you don't see stuff like that anymore.
 
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