Apple wants to know if you're Iranian

[BlackVelvet]

IMAGINE if your ethnicity determined which products you were able to buy. Or if sales clerks required you to divulge your ancestry before swiping your credit card.

Some of us don’t have to imagine.

Last month, Sahar Sabet, a 19-year-old Iranian-American woman, was improperly prevented from buying an iPad at an Apple store in Alpharetta, Ga. After she had gone over the various options with two Apple sales clerks, a third clerk, who had overheard Ms. Sabet speaking Persian to her uncle, intervened. He asked what language they were speaking and, when he found out it was the language of Iran, he said she could not buy anything because “our countries do not have good relations” — never mind that she intended to give it to her sister in North Carolina. A local news account had Ms. Sabet describing a cousin in Iran as the intended recipient, an inaccuracy that was propagated last week in a Wall Street Journal opinion article defending Apple’s discriminatory behavior.

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[waryaa]

proly the clerk misunderstood "US Intellectual Property Export" laws that forbids US corporations to export technology to countries like Iran.

[BlackVelvet]

Turns it is a lot more than just one silly sales rep

An isolated episode could be dismissed as the work of one bigoted, or misguided, employee. But there have been other recent reports of Apple employees refusing to sell to customers of Iranian descent.

In Santa Monica, Calif., two friends looking to buy an iPhone were asked whether they were speaking Persian and promptly informed, “I am sorry, we don’t sell to Persians.” In Sacramento, an Iranian-American man looking to buy Apple products for personal use mentioned that he was also thinking about buying an iPod for his nephew in Iran and was told he could not buy anything, even for himself. An Iranian student in Atlanta, and his Iranian-American friend, were not permitted to buy an iPhone after the friend, under questioning, mentioned that the student planned to return to Iran for the summer.

Apple has not been taken over by xenophobes. The discrimination is one result of trying to enforce flawed and haphazard United States export controls against countries, like Iran, that are under sanctions. Retail employees are left to interpret and implement federal policy, and racial profiling results.

At the moment, nearly all exports to Iran are prohibited. Traveling to Iran with items like computers and smartphones is illegal. Apple’s own policy, stated on its Web site, makes it very clear that its products can’t be sent there.

But it is also illegal in the United States for a private company to discriminate against individuals based on race, color, religion or national origin under the Civil Rights Act. This protection extends of course to retail stores.

Apple officials note that their diverse retail work force includes many multilingual employees — including employees who speak Persian with customers — and deny any discrimination. Apple also says that if employees ask customers how they plan to use a product, it is only to help meet their needs — not to ensure compliance with export laws.

But the message on the ground seems, at the very least, muddled. One Apple employee told my organization, in an electronic message, “a lot of employees, at least in my store, are almost forced to stereotype certain customers that come in due to the policy and fear of losing their job. ... It is unfortunate that Apple puts this on their employees.” He continued: “Don’t think it is right given the circumstances. We essentially have to police what a customer is going to be doing with their products, which should be left to police rather than a sales rep.”

Apple retail employees may be “geniuses,” but they are not lawyers or law enforcement officers. Yet because of American pressure on companies to enforce export controls, some Apple employees have turned into vigilante sanctions enforcers.

[eliteSomali]

There is a reason these people are known as the world's dumbest people.

[waryaa]

BV tnx! Most likely, the next thing we'll hear is a class action lawsuit against Apple filed by Persian speaking Americans.

[BlackVelvet]

They should, never liked Apple anyway

[miskeen86]

if i say i'm from somalia, will those apple sales employees sell the iPad to me?