:00:16. > :00:22.Another attempt to crack the Chinese market - we look at the industry
:00:23. > :00:27.chatter surrounding Facebook's latest effort. And it was designed
:00:28. > :00:38.to protect by the sea but a fuse smartphone Aksana been not
:00:39. > :00:40.delivering on the Polar function. -- smartphone apps have not been
:00:41. > :00:45.delivering. Welcome to Asia Business Report live
:00:46. > :00:50.from Singapore with me, Marico or it. China's 1.4 billion population
:00:51. > :00:57.makes it an attractive market for many businesses including Facebook
:00:58. > :01:01.-- Mariko Oi. Their there are reports that Facebook is developing
:01:02. > :01:05.software that would help to avoid sharing topics if the government
:01:06. > :01:09.would request it. This occurs around the world but it would be the first
:01:10. > :01:17.time where Facebook in essence will be handing over that control to a
:01:18. > :01:21.state. Our technology reporter has more. We all know that Facebook
:01:22. > :01:26.wants to keep growing and needs to keep growing beyond its 1.8 billion
:01:27. > :01:29.users that it now has, and one huge potential market for them is of
:01:30. > :01:37.course China, but China has strict rules about what you can say on the
:01:38. > :01:41.Internet, topics you can do is -- discuss and debate and Facebook have
:01:42. > :01:45.in looking at how to accommodate those stipulations of breaking into
:01:46. > :01:52.China. Now, this story, which appeared in the New York Times, from
:01:53. > :01:56.Mike Eisenach, quoth Facebook employees, unnamed former employees,
:01:57. > :02:01.saying there was discontent about creating this tool. Facebook e-mail
:02:02. > :02:06.me and said they are looking at many options in China but it would not
:02:07. > :02:09.confirm or deny that their software, that would allow the Chinese state
:02:10. > :02:14.or a third party in country to censor content, Facebook wouldn't
:02:15. > :02:18.confirm or deny that it exists but it is certainly a huge talking point
:02:19. > :02:22.among people who want open and free Internet. In other news: making
:02:23. > :02:28.headlines, Japanese carmaker Toyota is recalling the minivans to fix an
:02:29. > :02:34.issue that might arise with the sliding doors. The recall affects
:02:35. > :02:38.more than 700,000 vehicles in the United States and 4000 units in
:02:39. > :02:43.South Korea and Taiwan. German airline Lufthansa has lost a
:02:44. > :02:49.last-minute court to hold a planned pilot strike that will cancel 900
:02:50. > :02:53.flights on Wednesday. The industry action will affect around 100,000
:02:54. > :02:56.passengers. The strike is part of a long-running pay dispute at
:02:57. > :03:00.Lufthansa. Now, do you know who has your
:03:01. > :03:05.number? Some apps aimed at protecting the privacy of users
:03:06. > :03:09.appear to be doing the opposite. The apps let people know who is calling
:03:10. > :03:15.them when an unknown number of peers on their phone. But they also helped
:03:16. > :03:19.themselves to date from people's contact books. From Hong Kong, we
:03:20. > :03:23.explain why that is causing people to lose sleep over their privacy.
:03:24. > :03:27.Don't you hate getting calls from people you don't know? Well, there
:03:28. > :03:31.are several apps that can help identify who is calling, or block
:03:32. > :03:37.calls from numbers you don't like, apps like True Caller and see and
:03:38. > :03:41.security have millions of users, but there it is a catch because these
:03:42. > :03:45.apps have huge databases of phone numbers, but they come from a range
:03:46. > :03:50.of sources, including from users' content lists, which means if you
:03:51. > :03:53.download the app will of your friends might end up in a publicly
:03:54. > :03:58.searchable database whether they like it or not. Once they are in the
:03:59. > :04:03.system people can find out their names by looking at their phone
:04:04. > :04:06.numbers. Investigative even found the name of Hong Kong's chief
:04:07. > :04:12.executive in the database as database as well as other top
:04:13. > :04:14.politicians. CM securities says it is stopping the lookup function
:04:15. > :04:19.while it addresses privacy concessions.
:04:20. > :04:25.As mentioned, the newsagency broke the story, and I spoke with the
:04:26. > :04:32.founder of the company to ask how he came to find out this discrepancy.
:04:33. > :04:36.Personal experience, a woman told one of our FatWire reporters last
:04:37. > :04:41.month, she used her mobile phone to call a taxi one day in Hong Kong and
:04:42. > :04:48.when she got in the taxi the driver can call her name and even, scarily,
:04:49. > :04:53.he can identify which company he works for, so she tried to find out
:04:54. > :05:02.and asked the taxi driver how he could possibly do that and the taxi
:05:03. > :05:07.driver said he had downloaded call ID CM security on his mobile, so
:05:08. > :05:16.whoever he calls he can identify who that person is or even some personal
:05:17. > :05:20.data included in the app's database so investigative reporters looked
:05:21. > :05:30.into this app, CM Security, and we found out later that other apps,
:05:31. > :05:34.like Sync.me and True Caller have a similar function. That is quite
:05:35. > :05:42.frightening. How many people are affected by this? It is difficult to
:05:43. > :05:49.say but, according to data released by the free apps, it is over 3
:05:50. > :05:56.billion database included in the cloud server, so it's a very huge
:05:57. > :06:01.database and of course every country -- and across every country in the
:06:02. > :06:06.world. So, what can people do to protect themselves? True Caller and
:06:07. > :06:12.Sync.me provides means on their website for anyone to use to request
:06:13. > :06:19.to remove their personal data from the server. But CM Security does not
:06:20. > :06:24.provide this means until, and we have revealed this story, they
:06:25. > :06:28.released three separate press release after the story and the
:06:29. > :06:36.latest one just released yesterday, they promised to provide a means for
:06:37. > :06:41.anyone to request to remove their data from the database. So far,
:06:42. > :06:46.until this morning, we still cannot see this means available on the
:06:47. > :06:49.website. US President-elect Donald Trump may have dealt the
:06:50. > :06:54.Trans-Pacific Partnership a death blow, announcing he would withdraw
:06:55. > :07:00.from the 12 nation trade pact on his first day in office. Japan's Prime
:07:01. > :07:04.Minister Shinzo Abe says that TPP would be meaningless without the
:07:05. > :07:09.United States. The Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak says trade and
:07:10. > :07:13.open regionalism in the Asia-Pacific is key to benefiting our peoples, so
:07:14. > :07:19.why is there such strong opposition to the deal in the US? Earlier, I
:07:20. > :07:26.put that question to a member of non-profit organisation Public
:07:27. > :07:31.Citizen. Well, Trump basically, has simply buried the zombie TPP. It was
:07:32. > :07:37.already dead, because it was impossible to build a majority to it
:07:38. > :07:41.in the US Congress for the ten months since it was officially
:07:42. > :07:46.signed. And the reason why is largely because the deal was
:07:47. > :07:53.negotiated behind closed doors for six years with over 500 US corporate
:07:54. > :07:58.advisers, but the public and Congress shut out, and as a result
:07:59. > :08:03.instead of focusing on free trade it was junked up with a lot of
:08:04. > :08:07.protectionist rubbish, extensions of monopoly patents that would raise
:08:08. > :08:09.medicine prices, writes for multinational corporations to sue
:08:10. > :08:15.governments and a man taxpayer compensation for laws they didn't
:08:16. > :08:19.like, deregulation of finance. If it had really been a trade deal it
:08:20. > :08:22.would not have run into this trouble. But isn't it fair to say
:08:23. > :08:27.that American voters were not too keen on NAFTA and other free trade
:08:28. > :08:31.deals as well, and does it mean America is ditching this free trade
:08:32. > :08:38.and actually giving China a bit of the benefit. Well, first of all,
:08:39. > :08:41.with respect to free trade, Ita dinghy and have had the opportunity
:08:42. > :08:45.to see a real free trade agreement since NAFTA, because the model of US
:08:46. > :08:48.free trade agreements have basically, we have seen the
:08:49. > :08:53.hijacking and the capture of trade negotiation by these privileged
:08:54. > :08:57.corporate advisers and so as a result agreements since NAFTA have
:08:58. > :09:02.had less to do with trade and more about special privileges to make it
:09:03. > :09:05.easier for jobs to be made offshore, for foreign investors to collect
:09:06. > :09:11.taxpayer compensation for policies they don't like. As far as China,
:09:12. > :09:18.you know, the hype about the demise of the TPP helping China echoes the
:09:19. > :09:22.Obama administration's own increasingly desperate foreign
:09:23. > :09:26.policy claims when they couldn't sell the agreement on the merits and
:09:27. > :09:30.they started this sort of scaremongering, the end of US
:09:31. > :09:35.leadership, China will take advantage, but the reality is the US
:09:36. > :09:40.has duty-free trade under IS is king agreements with the six TPP
:09:41. > :09:46.countries which account for 80% of the entire block's GDP and has very
:09:47. > :09:49.low tariffs already with the other partners because we are on the World
:09:50. > :09:55.Trade Organisation. Meanwhile, as far as leadership in the region, the
:09:56. > :09:59.US 7th Fleet, which obviously is the defence for Japan, for Vietnam's
:10:00. > :10:05.etc, these are the China, remains stationed, and as we saw with a
:10:06. > :10:11.minister are they that is what he wanted to talk to Donald Trump
:10:12. > :10:12.about, not the TPP -- vis a vis., let's look at
:10:13. > :10:38.Report. Sport Today's coming up next. Thanks for watching.
:10:39. > :10:41.Welcome back. You're watching BBC News.
:10:42. > :10:44.Donald Trump has said he won't prosecute Hillary Clinton
:10:45. > :10:47.over her e-mails controversy despite promises made
:10:48. > :10:51.He's also said he's keeping an open mind about climate change.