Responding to a growing outcry over conditions at its overseas factories, Apple said Monday that an outside organization had begun to audit working conditions at the plants where the bulk of iPhones, iPads and other Apple products are built, and that the group would make its finding public.
For years, Apple has resisted calls for independent scrutiny of the suppliers that make its electronics. But for the first time it has begun publicly divulging information that it once considered secret, after criticism that included coordinated protests last week at Apple stores around the world and investigative news reports about punishing conditions inside some factories.
Last month, Apple released the names of 156 of its suppliers. Two weeks later, Apple's chief executive sent an e-mail to the company's 65,000 employees defending Apple's manufacturing record while also pledging to go "deeper into the supply chain." And now, the company has asked an outside group - a nonprofit financed partly by participating companies like Apple - to publicly identify specific factories where abuses are discovered.
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