Previously I ranted about how Apple had “complied” with a UK court order by criticising the decision made by the UK courts and implying they had gotten it wrong. Now Apple have been dragged into court again to explain their lack of compliance, and been ordered to remove their previous statement and replace it with another whose wording has been dictated by the court.
Apple in a mind-blowing exhibition of stupidity tried to claim that whilst it would take just 24 hours to take down their previous statement, it would take up to 14 days to put up a replacement statement. For “technical reasons”.
Now as it happens, in addition to writing drivel on this website (where the only delay “technical reasons” might impose would be due to an infrastructure failure/upgrade, but “personal reasons” might well impose a 14-day delay), I have been involved in more “corporate” websites where content management systems can indeed impose “technical reasons” for a delay in updating a website. But not 14 days! More like a few hours, or at most 24 hours.
And if a content management system does impose a long delay in publishing website updates, it is always possible to bypass the CMS to publish emergency updates. Even if it is necessary to “break” the CMS to do so.
It may very well be that an internal approval process within Apple’s CMS normally requires 14 days for an update to be published. In which case the reason for the supposed 14 day delay is for “business reasons” rather than “technical reasons”.
Of course there is also another possibility. Given that Apple have recently launched new products, they may be very reluctant to put anything up on their home page (which the revised court order now requires) which distracts from their new product. You do have to wonder if this mysterious delay for “technical reasons” is in fact so that nobody gets distracted from the pretty pictures of Apple’s new products.
That would be very, very silly of them.
The court evidently did not think much of Apple’s excuse of why they could not put up a replacement statement promptly and have given them 48 hours to comply. So either Apple has to comply within 48-hours – demonstrating that they lied in court, or has to come up with detailed technical reasons why they cannot comply – which will demonstrate they are surprisingly incompetent when it comes to technical matters.
Neither alternative is comfortable for Apple executives, but this position is all their fault.