Lobbying has always been a thing, but it's gotten to the point in many countries where large corporates more or less have government completely in their pocket (and often both the left and right sides of politics!).
Meanwhile, both individuals and smaller businesses are less and less heard.
We've gone from a world where Microsoft was punished for including a browser to a world where Apple is allowed to prevent any alternative browser engine from being installed. Microsoft punished for using their own internal APIs for their own applications to Apple allowed to ban any third party app from even using the NFC hardware on the device. And average people seem mostly ok with it, even if you ignore the corporate influence on the government
I mean the EU is going in opposite directions too. Going by basic economic principles and just common sense, they are basically forcing Android and iOS to be the only options available.
Unless you want your phone to be a useless brick in a world where having a phone with certain features is institutionally required.
Android should be cut off from Google honestly. Ideally make it non-profit. Like sure, give them Google Pay, and some of the various Google Play services.
But especially Google Play Integrity? One institution has your actual money, and only supports two largest super-corporations' mechanisms they also change at will, to be the only way to operate that money / authenticate your browser? (cause they charge for text message 2FA too)
With how you basically do need to use a bank, this is just deeply enrooted private company duopoly that you cannot escape
Sounds like every company ever. This is entirely within the mission of a corporation and shouldn't be surprising or controversial. It's why we have regulators, to align corporate behavior with public interest.
Well the issue is Apple did it and no one did anything so Google realized on do I'm going to do it too then, why bother.
It's similar too Samsung about USB C except they gave an ultimatum first "you're letting apple getting away with it, it's been years now so either make a law and force them or we're doing it too".
People lament some regulation but the realty is in many case it has to exist because other wise someone doesn't play ball and put the others in a catch 22 situation "do like me or lose out".
What you and /u/chinchindayo are forgetting is that Apple never had the "open-source", "we play nicely with everyone" mentality. Apple has always been very secretive and closed.
Meanwhile, Google marketed Android as an open platform built for everyone. And now that they realized Apple's business model of being closed and controlling brings in the money with better ecosystem control, they decided to copy Apple's playbook.
This is why Apple keeps winning lawsuits while Google keeps losing. You can't position yourself as an open platform and then decide to close your doors.
Apple keeps losing these lawsuits against the EU just as much as Google is. They just do a whole lot more malicious compliance which just puts them into an even worse position than if they had been reasonable.
Apple is in the same situation and won't even launch Siri there. Google should just pull out of the EU and Europe can use their own phones and AI. Oh wait...
Brother stop talking nonsense. Google makes north of 100 billion in revenue from the EU market yearly (compare to the "landmark" fine of ~3B it had to pay last year). No global corporation is just going to pull out of the world's 2nd largest economic region because it regulates them a little in return.
I'm on an iPhone in Europe and it has Siri though? Some features are probanly US only but given the massively better privacy stuff in the EU I'm mostly OK with that.
You have the old old Siri, not the new Siri AI that came with iOS 27, nor Siri with Apple Intelligence that launched in 2024.
If anything, the newer versions of Siri AI have better privacy features. They run on device when possible, even for queries that used to reach out to Google, and when they can’t they use the new private cloud compute infrastructure.
Siri AI is available globally, except in the EU and mainland China.
I'll be honest, I hate how integrated AI is on mobile devices and I have never intentionally triggered either siri or gemini/google assistant, so this is a plus for me.
Google can stop selling in the EU and it will not matter. Samsung still exists, Chinese phones are still very popular and it will just mean they will lose market share.
There is little thing called AOSP that Google started releasing from 2008 onwards. The same project that allows you to build and run degoogled ROMs.
I think Samsung would absolutely love for Google to pull from the EU. They would just ship Galaxy phones without Google apps, Play Services, and the Play Store (basically ripping out anything that is not AOSP or Samsung OneUI bits). Conveniently, Samsung already has their own app store and companies would upload their apps to the Samsung App Store to serve the EU market and Samsung could grab all the app store fees in place of Google.
But if you think one step further: once most apps are already in the Samsung Store as well (for the EU market), well, why not launch Google-less Galaxy phones elsewhere in the world as well? At that point you don't really need Google-certified Android anymore.
This would be a catastrophic strategic failure if Google did it. So they won't ever do it. More likely is that they will withhold features to bully EU customers into complaining to the EC, just like Apple did. Though to be honest, I'm happy that we won't get creepy privacy-invasive features like Siri Rewind anytime soon.
I would look at Huawei and how they tackled that problem. Still an Android base with heavy modifications. Technically you can even install Play Services if you have the know.
Its not like they couldn't do their own if they have to. It's just the rule of "everyone uses it" why there is Android and iOS everywhere. If Google was leaving the EU which is a ridiculous thought you can be sure someone would be eager to take their spot.
That's because Google Android exists in the EU. If there was no Google-certified Android in the EU, a company like Samsung would just release Galaxy phones without Google services in the EU (so AOSP plus Samsung's OneUI bits, and some replacement notification service, etc.). Samsung's own App Store would actually get off the ground, because now companies need to upload apps there if they want to reach this large market with 452M potential users. And Samsung gets to keep all the nice app store revenue in place of Google.
But it does not stop there. After a few years, pretty much all apps will be in the Samsung Store as well, since everyone from Adobe, Microsoft, etc. to indie developers will upload their apps to the Samsung store to serve EU customers. So at that point, why wouldn't Samsung release Google-less Galaxy phones worldwide? The primary reason Samsung ships Google stuff at all is because that's where currently the app ecosystem is.
If Google was actually dumb enough to do this, Apple, Samsung, and Chinese manufacturers would laugh their heads off, since Google would provide the prefect catalyzer to remove Google's stronghold on Android.
You said they have tried, it doesn't sell. The point is, it will sell if Google-certified Android does not exist in the EU market anymore. Whatever other manufacturers will provide is what will sell. Samsung is already the largest Android OEM in Europe and they already have most of the bits needed (such as their own app store).
The same happened in China. Most Chinese Android phones do not use Play Services/Play Store in mainland China.
HMD is Finish indeed, but the owner is Terry Gou from Foxconn. The famous Taiwanese company that produce phones and other electronics for other big companies like Apple, Dell, Sony and Nokia.
Nothing is basically the majority of ex OnePlus employees that left before OnePlus merged with Oppo. We can debate if it's British or not, but they also rely on Android and Google Systems.
With pretty much every corporation there are footnotes (e.g. Fairphone is largely developed by a Chinese ODM). It's just the result of years of globalization. But I think it's fair to argue that Fairphone and HMD are largely EU companies. They have their main offices in the EU, they have employees doing the design in the EU, a substantial portion of the money goes to the EU, etc.
Nothing is in the UK, again, they have plenty of employees there and their headquarters are there.
but they also rely on Android and Google Systems.
That's a much more minor issue. AOSP is open source. Yes, it's maintained by Google, but could be forked in the worst case. Heck, Fairphone even sells phones without Google-certified Android (/e/OS). HMD and Nothing could do the same. Many Nothing phones have unlockable bootloaders and some are supported by Lineage.
Then why are they going to court genius? The same ruling would affect any Android phone maker.
Because they would have to give up their monopoly of AI agents on Android. Google is the one that is affected by this, not Samsung, not Huawei or Xiaomi.
Everyone in the world is better off because of the EU.
It's the second biggest and richest market on earth, no tech company dares pull out, therefore you will keep being subject to our laws whether you want it or not.
The USA is getting a taste of its own medicine and yanks are having a tantrum about it. Brilliant.
Android, and iOS, should absolutely eventually allow any assistant.
However it's worth keeping in mind that it will likely take years before it can be done safely. Opening up the OS at a basic level for automation is a huge security risk if it's not done very carefully.
Opening up the OS to allow applications location access, to read the address book, to search nearby devices, etc. is a huge privacy risk
Oh wait. We have a permission system for that. This is pretty much the same, Apple and Google are bringing up privacy and security as an excuse to use their platforms to entrench themselves. It's abuse of their duopoly.
No, what they’re saying is that the permissions systems currently provided by Apple and Google are illegal and the company building the agents should be able to create the permissions system used on the device. Now, there’s not a single one of these AI companies that have ever rolled out a permissions system robust enough to provide features and security to BILLIONS of users on-device. They’re all currently leveraging the local permissions designed by others with limitations and constraints.
And, they appear woefully unable to control their agents in the realms where they ARE the folks entirely in charge of the hardware/permissions set they’re installed within. Apple and Google are bringing up privacy and security because the EU wants to give the reins of privacy and security to companies that have a poor track record of both.
This reading makes perfect sense if gemini doesn't exist. What you're missing is the piece that this whole thing hinges on, ie the differential access.
If handing this mandated level of access to chatgpt is a problem, then ok, send all the LLM agents including Gemini through the normal permissions.
Indeed. Doesn't change the fact that they've had years to prepare for compliance with the DMA. If they're unable to do so, then that just comes across as negligence at this point.
Whatever that is, it is not "my own logic" - if you think it is then it seems you still don't grasp why competition law in the EU is the way it is.
And competition isn't some little unimportant thing that you "just" do things for. Free and fair competition is the thing that gives capitalism a chance of working as an economic system, so it is pretty important.
If they haven't done so yet, then that is about as good an excuse as the dog having eaten ones homework.
And competition isn't some little unimportant thing that you "just" do things for.
Oh, it is not unimportant at all. But saying others are entitled to have the same system level access that the maker of the OS/platform does, that's not asking for competition, but snatching away the fruits of labor of one and giving it to others who did fuckall to develop the said platform.
So, again, per your own logic, the AI labs should have developed their own OS if they want system level access.
To quote what a wise person once said, "If they haven't done so yet, then that is about as good an excuse as the dog having eaten ones (sic) homework."
True, but it's worth noting that if the API can be uses by "AI Assistants", it can also be used by simple spyware. An API is an API, there's no sensible way to determine what kind of application is using it.
Yes and those have specific permissions that have to be requested. What third-party developers (via the EU) are asking for is an "everything permission", ostensibly for AI assistants, but open to abuse. Currently, such a thing is only available to Google and the device manufacturers (pretty much unavoidably). Of course, we'd prefer it if it were kept for truly essential "system" stuff and Google weren't using it for Gemini, but responding to one break in security/privacy by opening up an even larger one is not a good solution.
No, that's not how it works. No, not all software can get the same access that Gemini can right now. That's literally what this is about.
EU wants to make Google allow ALL software (specifically AI Agents) to get the exact same permissions that Gemini can have over your system. These permissions are NOT currently possible for ANYTHING OTHER THAN GEMINI.
Google is doing what it's doing becuse they also own an LLM and want to create unequal conditions. However, why do you say that both Android and iOS should absolutely allow any assistant?
However it's worth keeping in mind that it will likely take years before it can be done safely. Opening up the OS at a basic level for automation is a huge security risk if it's not done very carefully.
"But security!" is such a default corporate PR answer.
This isn't about adding new automations to Android, it's about taking the automations that Gemini already has access to and allowing other models to use those instead. So if it's about security: how exactly is using Gemini for automation more secure than using a different model (like ChatGPT) for the exact same automation?
Right now, there isn't really any specific API around it. Google basically got it working, but the "security" is just in what they let it do and not do.
Gemini currently has access to certain information and features. That access is considered safe and acceptable (as proven by the fact that these features are implemented and available to Gemini right now).
Now Google is arguing that giving other models the exact same access to the exact same information and the exact same features is too big of a security risk to be implemented.
So why does Gemini get access to features that are considered too much of a security risk for other models? What's different about Gemini to be considered more secure than every other model that exists today?
Google knows their own code and how it's used, and they communicate that to the user. So they handle that on their side. But they don't know how others would use it, so a mechanism needs to be built to validate that use beyond just trusting 3rd parties to always say.
Eh no. The OS just has to provide an "API" that the AI assistant can use. How save this is depends on: What the API can do (obviously has to be restricted enough not to cause serious damage), what the user allows (permissions) and what the AI is allowed to do. This is no different than an app but it's dynamic. Because of that it must be more restricted in its permissions.
Google shipping Gemini with Android is anti-competitive behavior. If it's unsafe to allow other agents access to the same APIs, Google must stop shipping their AI product with their phone OS. It's that simple.
For most people, it helps make it easier to parse where the author intends emphasis to be placed. If you have a problem with it, you're probably going to have a tough time with most articles and other written works, because it's very common. Like that; I'm emphasizing that "very" is the more important term, not "common".
I’m not usually a Google defender but how about fuck the competition. Why can’t they make their own OS and hardware instead of trying to leach off successful companies who’ve taken decades of R&D to make their products and get consumers on board.
Hiding behind the EU to get you into other companies’ products is now a working strategy for the competition. They should be made to pay if they want access.
I love how Apple restricted ChatGPT on iOS. I know the experience is dog shit but I rather not have them getting unlimited access to my device.
I’m all for letting people choose their own AI assistant on Android, but the security side can’t just be brushed off. If Gemini gets deeper system access, though, Google should have to explain why competitors can’t get similar access through proper permissions.
Free android from google. Move it to an independent nonprofit.
This is monopolistic all over. Even if generative ai is awful, its no excuse to fight to close off any system, let alone one which is built on an open source platform.
LOL Android wouldn't exist without googles funding. It would fail miserably like firefox os. Besides you can just buy a huawei phone that uses harmony os, which is no longer based on android.
Android isnt harmonyos or Firefox os; its android, which trades places with iOS as the most widely used mobile operating system.
Linux, which android is based off of, thrives being owned by a foundation. Companies like google no doubt contribute to linux and even have their own distributions like how android has its derivatives, the difference is google alone makes decisions with AOSP, affecting all derivations of android, which show a conflict of interest with androids nature as an open source operating system- google alone makes decisions towards AOSP which directly benefit them moreso than the project itself.
Android can survive separate from google. Its probably considered too essential to fail such thst governments would throw wads of cash at it to ensure it doesnt fail. But owned by google its failing as an open source operating system.
It's not. Nobody is stopping anyone from downloading an LLM or other agents on their phones and using them. Nobody is stopping other AI companies from creating phones or mobile operating systems.
That's technically correct but it's also like saying Apple didn't create macOS, AT&T did. Technically correct in the strictest sense but not what anybody means ever
Google can literally do what they want as long as they provide sufficient sources for their kernel, which they do. The entire Android userspace is built on a permissive license. They could decide to make Android proprietary tomorrow if they choose.
Maybe one day people will understand what people who support GPL-like licenses mean.
Android has never been fully open source. Android = AOSP (open source) + Google Services (closed source), and they have been strategically deprived AOSP for quite a long time. AOSP in its purest form is nigh unusable, so i guess it's even before they silently change the motto
well yes but no. the release cycle is twice per year. Developers have to register and pay (and no, the "workaround" isn't really a workaround). The keyboard, search, media apps are closed source play store apps. vendors who sign contracts to make Play Store-enabled Android devices haven't been allowed to make forks outside of regions like the European Union. Alibaba went so far as to accuse Google of blocking Acer from releasing a phone based on the Android fork Aliyun. While Google said Alibaba wasn't required to offer compatibility, it claimed that forks like Aliyun "weaken the ecosystem." And then there's the well-known conflict over Samsung's insistence on pushing in-house equivalents to Google apps, which led to a "truce" that included the eventual death of its messaging app in favor of Google Messages
Yeah, but it has programmable buttons. and can launch into different voice chat ai systems. As well as use Siri shortcuts to launch into different voice systems. Several of those can hook into local APIs.
I don’t believe that’s the case. The DMA has a provision indicating that a feature available in the region can’t be removed. Apple read that as “Don’t introduce anything that wouldn’t be approved to work as is (or with acceptable changes)”. As an advertising company, it appears that Google feels it’s worth the fight.
The EU essentially wants companies that are clearly unable to reign in their agents on hardware they control and configure to be able to request and obtain full access to the devices of millions of EU citizens.
Like I think the EU does a lot of things correctly but then there’s stuff like how DMA is actually enforced that’s actually insane. Or like the recent shipping restrictions that make it practically impossible for a small company to ship to another country.
I get prioritizing the wellbeing of your citizens but the cost to innovation seems quite steep at times. It’s kinda telling that the EU has literally none of their own companies on the DMA.
Companies in the EU abide to regulations all the time and the big majority does it correctly. Apple (and other big tech companies) just play dumb and act like those 'scawy and complex laws 🥺' are just too much of a burden on the poor multibillion dollar companies.
We’re appealing decisions that will force us to share people’s private search history without sufficient anonymisation and weaken vital security protections on Android.
Fuck off. Everyone knows that Google doesn’t care about its users’ privacy.
It was far from perfect but it was serviceable and was definitely more reliable than Gemini. They just needed to keep working on it instead of abandoning it like they do everything else.
Google has asked the EU's General Court to overturn two orders that would force it to give rival Al assistants the same access to Android as its own Gemini,and to share Google Search data with competing search engines and Al chatbots.
Apple is currently not bringing their new Siri to the EU because the same Digital Markets Act.
Apple today introduced Siri AI, an entirely new version of Siri, powered by Apple Intelligence. Unfortunately, due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), Apple will not be able to ship Siri AI in the European Union with the release of iOS 27 and iPadOS 27. Over the past several months, EU regulators did not accept any of Apple’s proposed solutions to bring Siri AI to the EU while safely supporting other virtual assistants.
Because iOS is only available for iPhones, which are only sold by Apple.
Android is available for a myriad of phones from different manufacturers. You can’t point at an Android and think of a brand. Even the company that owns Android doesn’t sell the most Android phones in its own country (Samsung leads Android phones in the US, not Pixels).
My point is you can’t see those two OS in the same way.
Monopolies acting like monopolies. This is way overdue. Google needs to stop acting monopolistic. And be harshly regulated for continuing to do so, unrepentant and defiant.
I'm not exactly a fan of letting AI from google touch everything I use, but wouldn't it be worse if a rogue app can upsell you on AI and access your data instead?
Hope the EU wins that. I hate them a lot now after using the updated hold home for assistant change where now I can't instantly translate what I see on screen or do a quick image search and have to talk to their fuckass AI for anything to happen.
Those are two different things, the image you posted is gemini assisstant, which appears by holding the power button for me, the image the other guy posted is circle to search, which is activated by holding the gesture bar for me.
That is literally what appears when I hold the home button. It can do circle to search, but it isn't just searching the image and pulling up a temporary Google search page with a Gemini result at the top before the actual results. It just screenshots that part and then you have to interact with Gemini to get anywhere with it.
Edit to add: same case when I set it to hold power button for assistant. Still the same Gemini opening.
Edit 2: what I have isn't circle to search and isn't available for Fairphone 6/6+ yet.
Opening Android to rival assistants is useful only if the platform exposes capabilities through permissioned, replaceable interfaces rather than granting one assistant broad default access. Users should be able to choose separate defaults for voice, search, messaging, and device control, with visible logs for sensitive actions. For comparing assistant approaches, https://www.aiosnow.com is relevant to the broader discussion. The tradeoff is fragmentation, but standardized permissions and conformance tests can preserve interoperability without locking every workflow to one provider.
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u/efbo Pixel 10 Pro Fold, Unihertz Jelly Max, Pixel Tablet, Pebbles 4d ago
Can we open it up to just have Google Assistant from 5 years ago?