The Apple Inc. credit card being launched with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will not allow the purchase of cryptocurrencies with the card, according to a customer agreement posted to Goldman’s website on Friday.
The Apple Card customer agreement said the card cannot be used to purchase cash advances or cash equivalents that include cryptocurrencies, casino gaming chips, race track wagers or lottery tickets. Goldman declined to comment and Apple did not immediately respond to request for comment.
MacDailyNews Take: Regarding jailbreaking, the Apple Card Customer Agreement also explicitly states: If you make unauthorized modifications to your Eligible Device, such as by disabling hardware or software controls (for example, through a process sometimes referred to as “jailbreaking”), your Eligible Device may no longer be eligible to access or manage your Account. You acknowledge that use of a modified Eligible Device in connection with your Account is expressly prohibited, constitutes a violation of this Agreement, and could result in our denying or limiting your access to or closing your Account as well as any other remedies available to us under this Agreement.
Read the entire Apple Card Customer Agreement here.
They should ban purchasing porn too, more in line with Apple’s values.
Why the snark, Nick? Doesn’t do you any harm. Plenty of other cards, phones and computers for you, and anyone else.
Because the blocking of any legal activity is censorship. You can contend this is a grey area where a financial institution is not owned by the user, and you would be right, but it is censorship. They just have the “right” to censor.
Now if they forced you to use the Apple Card exclusively for all Apple related transactions, they should be beaten up.
Yet, this is how it is with Apple Stores.
“the blocking of any legal activity is censorship”
Uh – no. This is NOT what censorsip means.
If you manufacture some clothing line that is legal and I choose not to have it in my store, that is NOT censorship.
Or if a bank chooses not to carry certain kinds of legal financial products.
Or if a stock market chooses not to sell legal cryptocurrency.
No “store”, financial or otherwise, is morally or legally bound to offer every kind of legal product and it is not censorship for a company to make choices.
It is censorship, on your property you have the right to censor.
In the case of the Store, they have no right to be the only store on my property.
Obviously, Apple is not just selling you a physical object. It is selling you a whole system.
If you want to just have the physical object, to do with as you will, all you have to do is jailbreak it.
Option 2: You can also avoid Apple’s “whole system” by buying a different phone.
On the card… They’re not tricking you or lying to you. They’re saying up-front what you will get if you get the card. You can choose to have it or not. You can choose to have any one of NUMEROUS other cards. You really have nothing to whine about, but that never stops you, does it?
“Yehh, I think I’ll just make up a meaning for the word ‘censorship’ and then whine about it”. Nice.
I agreed in this case, that the services of the bank are the banks property and they have the right to censor, but make no mistake, it is censorship.
In terms of “buying into an ecosystem” then the device should never be your property. You have “usage rights” or shares, like some co-op living communities. And even there, you have a board, elected to protect you..
Not that’s important what you call it (everyone agrees they are within their rights to decide what uses they will and will not extend credit for), but I’d say “censorship” is probably not the right label here.
Applecynic – you’re mistaken. The exclusion / blocking of any legal activity is not censorship. It’s blocking or banning expression (in whatever form you want to cast THAT term) when that expression or speech is deemed obscene / morally offensive.
While there are plenty who object to gambling on the basis of morality, cryptocurrency hasn’t widely been seen that way. However, both gambling and crypto are reasonably categorized as financially high-risk investments. I’d hypothesize that people who borrow money for those purposes have a lower likelihood of being able to repay it.
Without compounded late/under-payment fees, Goldman Sachs gotta protect their risk differently.
As the first comment pointed out, there is no such prohibition on a product that’s very commonly censored for its amorality / obscenity – pornography – so putting this into the censorship boat is a stretch.ef
Activity is expression…
I happen to consider investing tantamount to gambling. They are the same thing. I agree that the owner of the service draw the line, but it is censorship.
Not allowing cash advances is interesting. I know people abuse that but it is a useful safety net if you need money in an emergency especially when traveling abroad.
It should be a no-brainer to carry more than one credit card when traveling abroad. Giving even more wiggle room in an emergency.
The sort of transactions that Apple Card will not support are the type of transactions which when done with a normal credit card will attract interest payments from the moment you do the transaction and you are liable to pay interest until it’s fully paid off. These types of transaction are quite different to normal credit card transactions, where you get 30-60 days grace from the moment you use it, through to receiving the bill and then have to settle it within about 30 days and are only charged interest after that point.
By contrast, with cash or cash-equivalent transactions, you start accruing interest the day you do the transaction and even if you were to settle your bill the moment you receive it and pay the interest charged up until that point, you would still be charged extra interest to cover the time between the bill being compiled and the time you actually settle it.
My hunch is that Apple has decided that it’s simpler all round to not support those types of transactions so that they are able to retain a simple and easily comprehensible rule for calculating any interest, which will be solely on any part of your monthly bill which you do not settle at the end of the month.
I’m for any card that doesn’t entice gambling, traditional or otherwise. Some cryptocurrencies’ value goes up and down so often it almost seems like gambling.
I think all EULAs should be abolished and a negotiated “closing” with attorneys present be had for each transaction. /s
Thank goodness…it can still be used for money laundering.
Money laundering is the key feature of the Trump Gold Card offered by PutinBank.