Yes. It seems this falls under "deemed export" concept, where controlled technology is "deemed" to be exported just by a foreign national having contact with it.
"Once such information is released to a foreign national, it is deemed to have been exported to that person’s country of nationality. Under both the EAR and the ITAR, the deemed export rule applies to technology (and, in some cases, software) transfers to a foreign national, if the technology (or software) to which the foreign national is exposed relates to the development, production, disposal, or use of items controlled under either the EAR or the ITAR. "
Now, whether this applies to ipads and iphones, I have no idea.
If that does apply to electronics like the iPad/iPhone, it is pretty retarded. It requires a significant degree of knowledge of citizenship law on the part of the sales personnel. Also, it is pretty hard to verify citizenship without getting into same breach of privacy that the Arizona law (SB1070) fell into. Lastly, how are you as a merchant supposed to enforce such controls in an electronic transaction?
I think that what the US government would say is that if you choose to sell export-controlled technologies, then it is your responsibility to follow the law. If you can't verify that you are following the law in an electronic transaction, then you either have to take the risk of getting convicted or not sell online.
The bizarre part here is that an ipad falls under export-controlled equipment.
The only way I can mentally justify something like an ipad falling under the law would be if the point was to keep the Iranian government from legally buying 10000 of them to make some kind of supercomputer. Which seems pretty unlikely as I type it out.
But under than scenario, a few escaping here and there is tolerable, but it would be worth preventing massive numbers of them being sold to a foreign nation.
Of course, since the devices are manufactured in China, there are a few questions being begged.
> The only way I can mentally justify something like an ipad falling under the law would be if the point was to keep the Iranian government from legally buying 10000 of them to make some kind of supercomputer. Which seems pretty unlikely as I type it out.
I think the way these laws are designed, they cover a swathe of computing devices that could potentially be used to aid the military. IIRC around 10 years back, when India and Pakistan decided to test nukes, the apple G5 was one of the things that got banned from export to those countries.
> But under than scenario, a few escaping here and there is tolerable, but it would be worth preventing massive numbers of them being sold to a foreign nation.
The key of course is how lenient DHS or whoever would be in this situation. If the act of coming into contact with an iPad/Any such device is an export control violation, how on earth does one hire Iranian citizens in tech (I know a large number of Iranian citizens come here to the US to study and work) for say iPad app development. Also, what happens in the situation that I want to sell my used iPad on eBay/CL?
"how on earth does one hire Iranian citizens"
You can't hire anyone from an embargoed country without obtaining a deemed export from the government which is a very lengthy and complicated process. I'm from an embargoed country and I recently lost job offer in a big semiconductor company because of the deemed export requirement. To avoid any export control liability, some tech companies prescreen applicants before extending interview invitations. If you google, there are a couple of articles where lawyers advise companies to prescreen based on country of origin, arguing that it doesn't violate anti-discrimination laws.
Most of the debate going on in comments here is about selling to a hypothetical Iranian visiting the US.
But that's not what actually happened here -- the customer is a US citizen. I am pretty confident that it is Apple policy to sell equipment to US citizens in US stores regardless of their ancestry.
