You mean the company that wanted to ship CSAM detection for iCloud uploads with iOS, which was only abandoned because of the huge backlash? Or the company that's implementing privacy features which neatly don't affect its own apps, effectively boosting their ad platform? [1]
[1]: https://adguard.com/en/blog/apple-tracking-ads-business.html
Apple wasn't required to implement any CSAM detection, so why did they do it? Saying it was pushed onto big tech by governments when there is no law demanding it feels apologetic to me.
As things were, Apple was able to serve up peoples images when presented with a warrant.
If they went to end to end encryption for photo libraries they wouldn’t be able to do that. And I can basically guarantee something would happen and there would be claims about how “Apple protects child molesters”. It’s just too juicy, and we saw the ones about Apple protecting terrorists by not unlocking phones.
So I think they tried to come up with a solution. Something that would let them do end to end encryption but be able to show they’re not protecting child pornographers.
If someone wants to store stuff on YOUR servers YOU get to inspect it for whatever you want for whatever reason you want, arbitrarily and/or capriciously within the terms of whatever agreement you enact with your users. And the law, of course. If you don't want to inspect it, that's fine and that's your business. If you do want to inspect it, that's fine and that's your business.
If users want to keep stuff on their device you don't get to inspect it.
This isn't complicated.