EU Orders Google to Give Rival AI Apps the Same Android Access as Gemini

[Arytonsenna]

Apple's "Shortcuts" App has been there for years with the ability to control other apps and respond immediately to events on the device. Why didn't the EU force them to open that up?

 

[turbineseaplane]

I think tobacco is a good analogy:

• Tobacco is clearly harmful for the user — sharing users private data with Meta or a similar player whose business is selling users profile to advertisers is clearly harmful to the user
• Tobacco can have irreversible consequences (lung cancer) — Leaking the data to a Chinese company will be once and done; the user cannot undo the harm
• Tobacco can have negative impact to society beyond the user (other taxpayers end up paying for users chemotherapy) — Leaking a sizeable share of EU population's private data to CCP controlled AI provider can have national security implications.

Getting population at large to understand downsides of tobacco took decades. And legally forcing vendors to cover half of the product with warnings.

I am afraid that:

• Legislation will do the opposite of requiring warnings. This time it is more likely to mandate no warnings due to them putting AI companies in competitive disadvantage.
• There will again need to be decades of harm to the population until the population learns the consequences.

I would add that, at least in the US, I wish we could ban the marketing of more things.
I really believe it has helped with Tobacco to not have that glorified and marketed all over.

The alcohol, pharmaceuticals, gambling ADs alone have become almost laughably pervasive.

My friends and I have a joke about TV AD breaks during American Football games.

"Here comes another drug, wager, drink and truck" AD break.
It's sad how often many of those, sometimes ALL, make it into a given 2.5 minute AD break.

 

[turbineseaplane]

LET THE USER DECIDE for gods sake. I’m from Germany and since the EU cancels us everything that’s fun, I guess in a short period of time we move so much backwards that we start using horses and carriages again

This is quite hyperbolic.
Nothing is going to lead anyone back to "horses & carriages" again.

C'mon. 🤔

 

[I7guy]

I think google, like apple, now has to think twice about how it deploys it’s functionality.

 

[turbineseaplane]

This! 😍 But the majority of Americans won’t understand because they grew up in the society they did.

As an American, I promise you that a HUGE chunk of these issues is that so many Americans have no exposure to other societies, how they work or any truly objective perspective on what we have here, how we are forced to live and all the things we are actually subjected to and just accept as "normal".

It's always amazing to me to see how many of my friends and family go on endless European vacations to beautiful walkable cities, have an amazing time and wax poetically about the infrastructure, design, food, feel & vibe ...

... and then return home to sit in their personal military tank, in traffic on a stroad on their way to a Starbucks drive thru to plod along at a job and life experience they barely enjoy at all.

 

[koil]

Allowing AI companies, of all possible types, access to your phone data and context simply does not sound like a good idea in this exact unwavering stance the EU is taking here.

But they don't just "get access" man, its your choice to give them access... the EU are just saying if Google are allowed to provide AI integrations using their agent, then because they are a gatekeeper through Android they must allow competitors to be able to build competitor products.

Same with the iPhone and Siri AI.

It gives you as the device owner control over who you want to give access to your data to. It could technically be a self-hosted open source agent even, the only thing mandated is the data-access APIs can't be vendor-locked.

I fail to see how this can be a negative thing.

 

[mrochester]

But they don't just "get access" man, its your choice to give them access... the EU are just saying if Google are allowed to provide AI integrations using their agent, then because they are a gatekeeper through Android they must allow competitors to be able to build competitor products.

Same with the iPhone and Siri AI.

It gives you as the device owner control over who you want to give access to your data to. It could technically be a self-hosted open source agent even, the only thing mandated is the data-access APIs can't be vendor-locked.

I fail to see how this can be a negative thing.

How do consumers make an accurate assessment as to who to give their data to?

 

[Xiao_Xi]

How do consumers make an accurate assessment as to who to give their data to?

With certifications, like physical products.

 

[surferfb]

But they don't just "get access" man, its your choice to give them access... the EU are just saying if Google are allowed to provide AI integrations using their agent, then because they are a gatekeeper through Android they must allow competitors to be able to build competitor products.

Same with the iPhone and Siri AI.

It gives you as the device owner control over who you want to give access to your data to. It could technically be a self-hosted open source agent even, the only thing mandated is the data-access APIs can't be vendor-locked.

I fail to see how this can be a negative thing.

I just fundamentally disagree that Apple/Google should be forced to enable functionality that they think is (and is) harmful for their customers and has a high likelihood of blowing back on Apple/Google when it inevitably does cause harm.

We’re talking about letting a third party have access to literally everything on the phone. Health data, encrypted messages, photos, location, phone calls, emails, etc. And the fact of the matter is that most consumers do not understand and aren’t going to understand that setting Grok as the default AI means that Grok gets to upload all that data to the cloud and do who knows what with it. And the EU won’t even let Apple warn users that’s the case because “it’s not neutral” to say Apple’s implementation is private and Grok’s isn’t, even if that is undeniably true.

Then, when users start getting targeted ads based off of their end-to-end encrypted Messages, they’re not going to think “Grok is selling my data” - they’re going to think “Apple lied about iOS keeping my data private.”

Apple even outlined a way to move forward, one that would cost them more than all other DMA compliance to date combined, and the EU rejected it out of hand.

The problem with the DMA is that it assumes all gatekeepers are bad actors, all developers are good actors, and all users understand technology and the privacy tradeoffs. I think all three of those assumptions are laughably wrong.

 

[turbineseaplane]

We’re talking about letting a third party have access to literally everything on the phone. Health data, encrypted messages, photos, location, phone calls, emails, etc. And the fact of the matter is that most consumers do not understand and aren’t going to understand that setting Grok as the default AI means that Grok gets to upload all that data to the cloud and do who knows what with it. And the EU won’t even let Apple warn users that’s the case because “it’s not neutral” to say Apple’s implementation is private and Grok’s isn’t, even if that is undeniably true.

That part in bold is what I'd like to see changed, and then let users do as they'd prefer.

I'm just not convinced it's overall desirable to have companies (any company, not just Apple) deciding for users how their own data is opened up or not.

 

[tonmischa]

You do understand that you are paying for your health care from your salary right?

Who says I am getting a salary?
But you are correct. I was trying to make a joke about Google‘s fines going into the EU budgets.
I admit, this particular post of mine is pretty lame.

 

[surferfb]

That part in bold is what I'd like to see changed, and then let users do as they'd prefer.

I'm just not convinced it's overall desirable to have companies (any company, not just Apple) deciding for users how their own data is opened up or not.

I get that - there are definitely real drawbacks to my preferred approach - if there was an easy answer we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

I actually think Apple’s proposed path forward (as I understand it) presented to the EU was a good compromise. It’s a shame the EU rejected it out of hand.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I get that - there are definitely real drawbacks to my preferred approach - if there was an easy answer we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

I actually think Apple’s proposed path forward (as I understand it) presented to the EU was a good compromise. It’s a shame the EU rejected it out of hand.

I'm glad all this keeps cropping up and getting talked about.

I realize people tire of the EU. Nobody really likes the itch that keeps needing a scratch.

Someone has to be bringing a lot of this up, as the "wild West" approach of the US basically just leaves users as the victims. Even if we think a market situation can fully solve for data control and privacy situations (which I do not), the users get taken for a ride before any corrective actions ever occur (if they even do at all).

It's a really tough balance to strike, but we are in the age of data, which is never going away, so we better all keep hashing it out.

This is also why I find retorts on topics like this such as "Go away EU!" to be counterproductive.