CYBERSECURITY UPDATE: Super Micro reviewing its hardware in search for alleged Chinese spy chips.

“Despite the lack of proof that a malicious hardware chip exists, we are undertaking a complicated and time-consuming review to further address the article,” Super Micro advised to its customers in a letter. Included as part of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the letter claims “We are confident that a recent article, alleging a malicious hardware chip was implanted during the manufacturing process of our motherboards, is wrong.”

“We trust you appreciate the difficulty of proving that something did not happen, even though the reporters have produced no affected motherboard or any such malicious hardware chip,” asserts Super Micro. “As we have said firmly, no one has shown us a motherboard containing any unauthorized hardware chip, we are not aware of any such unauthorized chip, and no government agency has alerted us to the existence of any unauthorized chip.”

Meanwhile: AWS CEO joins Apple’s Tim Cook in urging Bloomberg to retract its Chinese spy story.

PRIVACY: Facebook Gave Device Makers Deep Access to Data on Users and Friends.

Facebook has reached data-sharing partnerships with at least 60 device makers — including Apple, Amazon, BlackBerry, Microsoft and Samsung — over the last decade, starting before Facebook apps were widely available on smartphones, company officials said. The deals allowed Facebook to expand its reach and let device makers offer customers popular features of the social network, such as messaging, “like” buttons and address books.

But the partnerships, whose scope has not previously been reported, raise concerns about the company’s privacy protections and compliance with a 2011 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission. Facebook allowed the device companies access to the data of users’ friends without their explicit consent, even after declaring that it would no longer share such information with outsiders. Some device makers could retrieve personal information even from users’ friends who believed they had barred any sharing, The New York Times found.

Most of the partnerships remain in effect, though Facebook began winding them down in April. The company came under intensifying scrutiny by lawmakers and regulators after news reports in March that a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, misused the private information of tens of millions of Facebook users.

Data collection and sharing should be made easy to understand for the user, and with easy-to-understand, granular controls.

More: Apple Requested ‘Zero’ Personal Data In Deals With Facebook, CEO Tim Cook Says.

Perhaps, but even iOS allows app developers to force users to choose between never allowing location tracking or always allowing location tracking. “Allow only when using app” should always be an option.

JOEL KOTKIN: If the tech oligarchs can’t beat the bad press, they’ll just buy it.

What’s an oligarch to do? The putative tech masters of the universe now face unprecedented criticism from both left and right. The reasons extend from wanton privacy invasions of the people once described by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg as “dumb f***ks” to President Trump’s typically hyperbolic assaults on Amazon’s success at tax avoidance.

The public so far still does not disdain the tech oligarchs as they do Wall Street or energy firm but they are clearly threatened, both politically and in their wallets. Their once seemingly unstoppable hold of the capital markets also has started to slip somewhat as investors begin to worry about a potential decline in social media as well as technical failures undermining the value of companies like Uber, Tesla and Snapchat.

Not that the oligarchs will change their ways without coercion. Mark Zuckerberg, amid the uproar, still seems determined to block privacy protections in California or elsewhere. Facebook’s arrogance has even incited tension between the tech overlords, with Apple’s Tim Cook assaulting Mark Zuckerberg for privacy violations. The fact that Cook did this in Beijing, world capital of advanced surveillance, makes the public spanking ever more bizarre.

We need some antitrust enforcement.

STEVEN HAYWARD: A Reckoning for Silicon Valley Coming?

I’m not closely following the vote for independence going on this weekend over in Catalonia, but the news caught my eye that Google has acceded to the ruling of a Spanish judge that it must shut down the mobile phone app that referendum supporters had ginned up. Maybe this is the proper course, though it should also raise questions about whether it is a case study in what happens when you don’t have robust protections for free speech.

Beyond this instance, we know that Google, Apple, and other Silicon Valley tech giants are utterly supine in the face of demands for their cooperation with heavy government censorship especially in China. It is curious that Google and Apple, so confident in their pronouncements about How Things Should Be in America (example: Apple CEO Tim Cook saying he can’t understand why there is any debate at all about DACA—I guess the rule of law only counts when it’s being used to protect Apple’s intellectual property rights), are so timid when it comes to Chinese demands. Does China really want to eschew what Google has to offer? I can recall when American companies told South Africa that they would not cooperate with Apartheid laws there, and the South African government capitulated rather quickly.

That was different, because shut up.

COURAGE: Apple omits (PRODUCT)RED branding for red iPhone in China, perhaps to avoid AIDS controversy.

Tim Cook said yesterday it was in celebration of ten years’ partnership with the charity, and the PRODUCT(RED) branding was prominent on the homepage of its websites around the world – except in China, that is …

As TechCrunch notes, Apple’s Chinese website omits all mention of the link to the charity. This isn’t a language thing – the Taiwanese site has the same PRODUCT(RED) branding as the rest of the world – but the site suggests this is instead a political decision by Apple. Its theory is that Apple doesn’t want to jeopardise its somewhat delicate relationship with the Chinese government by getting embroiled in what is a controversial topic in the country.

There is reason to support this theory. China has been criticized in many quarters for failing to adequately respond to a growing AIDS crisis in the country.

It’s a great-looking phone — my wife wants one now, even though our contracts don’t come up until this autumn when newer models are expected. But it sure would be nice if Tim Cook showed Beijing the same courage of his convictions as he does Washington.

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: Why Do Corporate Leaders Became Progressive Activists? Kevin Williamson knows why:

Far from being agents of reaction, our corporate giants have for decades been giving progressives a great deal to celebrate. Disney, despite its popular reputation for hidebound wholesomeness, has long been a leader on gay rights, much to the dismay of a certain stripe of conservative. Walmart, one of the Left’s great corporate villains, has barred Confederate-flag merchandise from its stores in a sop to progressive critics, and its much-publicized sustainability agenda is more than sentiment: Among other things, it has invested $100 million in economic-mobility programs and doubled the fuel efficiency of its vehicle fleet over ten years. Individual members of the Walton clan engage in philanthropy of a distinctly progressive bent.

In fact, just going down the list of largest U.S. companies (by market capitalization) and considering each firm’s public political activism does a great deal to demolish the myth of the conservative corporate agenda. Top ten: 1) Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, is an up-and-down-the-line progressive who has been a vociferous critic of religious-liberty laws in Indiana and elsewhere that many like-minded people consider a back door to anti-gay discrimination. 2) When protesters descended on SFO to protest President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration, one of the well-heeled gentlemen leading them was Google founder Sergey Brin, and Google employees were the second-largest corporate donor bloc to President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign. 3) Microsoft founder Bill Gates is a generous funder of programs dedicated to what is euphemistically known as “family planning.” 4) Berkshire Hathaway’s principal, Warren Buffett, is a close associate of Barack Obama’s and an energetic advocate of redistributive tax increases on high-income taxpayers. 5) Amazon’s Jeff Bezos put up $2.5 million of his own money for a Washington State gay-marriage initiative. 6) Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has pushed for liberal immigration-reform measures, while Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz pledged $20 million to support Hillary Rodham Clinton and other Democrats in 2016. 7) Exxon, as an oil company, may be something of a hate totem among progressives, but it has spent big — billions big — on renewables and global social programs. 8) Johnson & Johnson’s health-care policy shop is run by Liz Fowler, one of the architects of Obamacare and a former special assistant to President Obama. 9) The two largest recipients of JPMorgan cash in 2016 were Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, and the bank’s billionaire chairman, Jamie Dimon, is a high-profile supporter of Democratic politicians including Barack Obama and reportedly rejected an offer from President Trump to serve as Treasury secretary. 10) Wells Fargo employees followed JPMorgan’s example and donated $7.36 to Mrs. Clinton for every $1 they gave to Trump, and the recently troubled bank has sponsored events for the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD, and other gay-rights groups, as well as donated to local Planned Parenthood franchises.

Even the hated Koch brothers are pro-choice, pro-gay, and pro-amnesty.

You may see the occasional Tom Monaghan or Phil Anschutz, but, on balance, U.S. corporate activism is overwhelmingly progressive. Why?

Read the whole thing.

IT’S TELLING THAT “MAKE AWESOME, INNOVATIVE NEW PRODUCTS” ISN’T ONE OF THEM: Tim Cook’s New Year’s Resolutions.

MY PREDICTION: THE WORSE 2017 IS, THE MORE HE’LL DOUBLE-DOWN ON THE “SOCIAL-JUSTICE” CRAP. Tim Cook’s terrible year in review.

Some suggestions: Bring back the headphone jack. Let the iPhone 8 be 1/8″ thicker, but with double the battery life. Quit making changes that haven’t been tested on significant numbers of ordinary users.

But I’ll bet we’ll get more “social justice” crap instead.

ALL I’VE GOT’S THIS SUNNY AFTERNOON: Apple Ordered by EU to Repay $14.5 Billion in Irish Tax Breaks.

CEO Tim Cook says he’s “confident that the Commission’s order will be reversed.“

SPENDING: Apple invests $1B in Didi Chuxing, China’s largest ride-hailing app.

In an interview with Reuters, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “We are making the investment for a number of strategic reasons, including a chance to learn more about certain segments of the China market. Of course, we believe it will deliver a strong return for our invested capital as well.”

Didi Chuxing told Reuters that this is its single largest round of funding so far. It claims to currently complete more than 11 million rides a day and have over 14 million drivers on its platform. The company’s other major investors include Tencent and Alibaba, two of China’s largest Internet companies, and SoftBank.

You have to wonder if this is the best time to be sinking that much money into China.

I DON’T THINK THIS IS GOOD FOR APPLE: The Hill: Carly Fiorina blasts Apple CEO’s ‘hypocrisy’ over Indiana law.

Fiorina, a potential 2016 GOP presidential contender, said Cook had a double standard and cited Apple’s operations in other countries with controversial laws about gays and women in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

“When Tim Cook is upset about all the places that he does business because of the way they treat gays and women, he needs to withdraw from 90% of the markets that he’s in, including China and Saudi Arabia,” Fiorina argued. “But I don’t hear him being upset about that.”

If the GOP thought like the Democrats, they’d schedule hearings about working conditions in plants that manufacture Apple gear.

WHEN WILL APPLE BOYCOTT HOMOPHOBIC PLACES LIKE SAUDI ARABIA AND CHINA? Shikha Dalmia: The overblown hypocrisy of Tim Cook’s business boycott of Indiana.

The Indiana law goes farther, and also applies to disputes between private parties. This “would allow people to discriminate against their neighbors,” alleges Apple CEO Tim Cook, who has become a liberal hero by leading the corporate campaign to boycott Indiana.

This is a horrible caricature.

For starters, the Hoosier RFRA allows private individuals to discriminate only when that is absolutely necessary to avoid violating their core religious principles. A Christian restaurant owner’s refusal to serve gays wouldn’t fit the bill. However, a Jewish baker who refuses to make sacramental bread for a Catholic Mass or an Evangelical photographer who declines to photograph a gay wedding might — might, mind you, not will. That’s because the law provides merely an argument for courts to weigh when evaluating discrimination complaints against such individuals — not an automatic defense. Judges could still decide — in fact have decided — that equal treatment is a compelling enough government interest that such discriminatory actions against gays are prohibited.

Apple has stores in Saudi Arabia, where they behead gays.