This notion that is being floated around that Apple's hands are tied due to privacy and legal concerns doesn't impress me much at all. My iPad was stolen about a month ago. I have the receipt, the serial number (from my box), and the MAC address (from my home router's log). Armed with that information it's technologically feasible to track, deauthorize, and eventually recover my device. But for reasons I have been unable to ascertain Apple refuses to provide anything like this for their customers. And as their devices become increasingly smaller, more desirable, and more expensive theft of them will also increase.
But to my point about legalities and privacy concerns: whether they are true or not, it certainly doesn't stop Barnes and Noble from blacklisting their Nooks when they are reported stolen. At least, that's what I found after buying a Nook color off craigslist. When I tried to register it online it refused. When I called in to customer support they informed me that it was a stolen device. If I wanted to remove the blacklist, they explained, simply provide the last 4 digits of the credit card, the name on the receipt, and the total dollar amount of the store along with store number where the device was purchased. If I lacked any of that information, I could simply contact the store and retreive it from their records. Since I was not the original owner, however, my option was to turn the device over to the police and hope they returned it to the rightful owner.
When I explained this scenario to Apple Care he insisted the limitation was due to privacy concerns. That defies logic, however, when one considers that it's the original owner (and only through the poilce and Apple's legal department) who must report the device stolen. And, like B&N, it's the customer who is able to provide personal information to blacklist (as well as unblacklist) a device according to his or her own volition.
I've been thinking a bit about this for some time...plenty of time to think on the couch sans iPad anway...and I've been wondering why in the world does Apple not allow users to deauthorize and blacklist iDevices through iTunes itself. At that point Apple has no involvement in the process and even the barest of legalities are irrelevant. My assumption is that Jobs has thought long and hard about these issues, including my described resolution, so it begs the question as to why Apple refuses to do anything about stolen devices. I hope one day I can ask him because that is a question I would like answered more than anything: what is the rationale for the hands-offs approach to this? I can't fathom one myself but I have to guess there is one. Apple hasn't come across to me as a callous company so I'm reluctant to attribute it to that.
