Apple has banned the social networking website Facebook from being visited from the computers in its retail stores. Visitors who were once allowed to surf to nearly every site on the internet are now being told that in addition to MySpace, Facebook is not allowed.
A report from tinycomb.com explains that this is primarily being done by Apple in an effort to thwart thieves and turn off loiterers from coming into the stores.
In an effort to thwart off time-theft and loiterers, Apple has decided to add Facebook to the list of banned websites at retail locations nationwide. When I asked some of the genius’ today whether or not anyone noticed the change, they all said that Facebook stopped working sometime in the past week. One of the genius’ said “Apple Stores have become a regular Internet Cafe, so placing the most popular time-killer [Facebook] of them all on the banned-list will certainly help everyone get a chance to test out the computers”.
In May of 2007, MySpace was also banned from all retail Apple Stores. Apple gave the following reasoning, “Nearly 2 million people visit Apple Stores every week. We want to provide everyone a chance to test-drive a Mac, so we are no longer offering access to MySpace in our stores.”
Update: MacBlogz has contacted a high number of Apple Stores, as well as gotten in touch with a colleague who helps run a very important flagship Apple Store. Every single store has Facebook access blocked and we got the following quote from our colleague:
“Yes, it is true. Facebook has been blocked in my store’s front-side network. If you work here, you have those privileges, if not, you will not be able to access the site from a demo machine.”
Fortune says it is on a store-by-store basis, however, every single Apple store we have called today gives the same response, that Facebook is indeed banned.
One Comment to “Apple Bans Access to Facebook Website From Retail Stores [U]”
good. there is nothing worse than going in to actually look at computers to buy one and all the units are busy with folks doing crap like facebook etc. and before anyone screams censorship, apple stores are private property and they are not legally compelled to be free internet cafes or allow open access to every site. they can and should block access as needed, either by blocking sites or by killing out loiters, noisy teenagers etc.
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