Apple in China, Ripoff in Amazon

July 6 2025

This morning I was looking for something to read after I finish Funny Because It's True: How The Onion Created Modern American News Satire by Christine Wenc—a nostalgic book for me, because I attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison precisely when The Onion newspaper was founded here—and I decided to follow it up with Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company by Patrick McGee. Usually I try to avoid shopping on Amazon, averaging less than one purchase per year there, but unfortunately the nearby Barnes & Noble doesn't have a copy of the book, so I searched for it on Amazon. Here's what I found:

The first result was indeed the book that I was searching for. The second was not, but it's still notable:

Available only on Kindle, this publication has the same title and subtitle as the famous book except for the last word: "Technology" in place of "Company". The author is a self-described aspiring cybersecurity specialist, which I take to mean not a cybersecurity specialist, with nom de plume CyberWave Shamsan, who by the way has no other publications on Amazon. According to Google, CyberWave Shamsan does not exist:

The publication date of this eBook is June 24, 2025, in other words, last week.

Whatever services that Amazon provides to customers in its store, policing scams appears not to be one of those services. Of course, the same applies to Apple in its crApp Store, as I've complained ad nauseam on this blog and on social media.