EU Plans to Ban Tech Companies From Pre-Installing Apps, Force Them to Share Data With Competitors

[Analog Kid]

I believe it would reduce the abuse potential. Basically, as I understand the proposed legislation, companies must make it clear how data is collected and they cannot collect the data to their own benefit (like Google does for example). It's might be a step towards raising awareness of how much data is collected and how it is treated.

On a more fundamental level, legislation of this type will help to create more transparency about the product. Is a company selling a product X because they want to sell that product or is it just a front-end for a more shady data collection service?

Then attack that problem directly. The EU has already taken some good steps in that direction with their various privacy and data laws. Here, though, they’re just making the problem worse:

the EU is planning to force the likes of Apple, Amazon, and Google to hand over customer data to smaller rivals in an effort to loosen the grip of big tech on consumers.

I haven’t read the actual act yet (someone please post a link!) but the emphasis as described in the article undercuts privacy in service to promoting “smaller rivals”. They’re turning customers into a commodity so European companies can get a toehold in these business areas.

I share much more data with Apple than I do with any other company because I trust them more than any of their “smaller rivals”. I don’t trust a little venture funded startup to protect my data to the same level that Apple does.

If anything is going to force me into full on Luddite-with-a-cabin-in-the-woods mode, it’s the idea that anything I share with one company automatically gets shared with all companies.

I can only hope the MR article has drastically misinterpreted what’s actually written.

 

[jinnj]

Typical EU - Take a good idea and totally mangle it up until it is no longer viable.

No Sh*t!!! This should be directed at all the crapware carriers install. Same for PCs. Block them from installing a **** ton of trialware!

 

[SDJim]

The plan would be a major blow to Apple and Google, and result in fundamental changes to how operating systems ship and function. However, it is unclear how shipping an iPhone, for example, with no pre-installed Apple apps from would work, when presumably even the App Store itself could not be pre-installed as it would then be a "preferred" app.

Thank you for highlighting the idiocy of this. If successful, this would essentially turn into an attempt socialize big tech. Which, needless to say, would be a total cluster.

 

[squirrellydw]

Hope Apple, Google and MS just refuse to sell and devices in the EU. See how they like that

 

[Rajani Isa]

Hey I just bought this new phone, and I want to make a phone call. So I go to open the phone app and... oh... it’s not there.
OK, well I can at least text, can’t I? Oh... not that either.
Can I at least check the weather? Nope, nope, definitely not.
Can I take a picture? Oh, no camera. Interesting.

depending on the details of it we could be sent to an age of “No computer? This is practically a paperweight”

 

[ArPe]

No, EU simply doesn't like that USA is forcing their crappy standards (or better, lack thereof) onto the rest of the world. Just because USA doesn't care about safety, personal rights or life quality doesn't mean that nobody should care about it.

As a European, I’ll take the US innovations because they are the ones who create them. Name 10 European innovations and standards in tech that didn’t get American funding. Which cable standards? Which encryption and wireless standards were created in Europe? Which operating systems? Which APIs? Which processors? Don’t say ARM because that’s British who voted to exit the EU and they developed the architecture with American help.

Or maybe it’s too late for the EU to compete so they punish American companies instead, even though these US companies employ many thousands of Europeans (and Asians too)

 

[2ilent8cho]

Makes sense to me, but sadly the UK is leaving the EU so it won't apply to us.

Nothing sad about the UK leaving the EU, good riddance! You know every website you go to now and you have to fight these endless accept cookie popups? Thats EU legislation for you, they caused that. Nobody wants it, nobody asked for it, but the EU think annoying the world with I accept cookies is a good idea.... or lets look at another idea the EU floated with article 13 from back in 2018 that's still on going https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51240785 luckily we won't be in the EU and won't have stupid article 13. Then we have the EU sticking its nose in Interchange fee's a few years ago which messed up the whole credit card system making it now WORSE for consumers. The list of them meddling in things they should not be meddling with and making things worse is endless. The EU is just a big ugly monster nobody asked for and is starting to encroach into peoples lives way too much, they should have just stayed as a common market and nothing more.

 

[Analog Kid]

I think it's very logic. When you will first start and configure your new iPhone you will be asked what app you prefer for mail, browser, etc. I can't see the problem here, E.U. is just trying to protect it's citizens from greedy corporate machines.

No, the EU is trying to turn the hardware into a commodity so European greedy corporate machines can essentially steal the benefit of all those years of technical innovation.

Corporate machines in a free market are greedy— that’s their whole reason to exist. Profit maximization. The language being used indicates they want to encourage free market principles of competition, so this is a bomb they’re dropping in the system to disrupt the current state of play hoping the system comes together in a new arrangement under the new regulations.

So if the end goal is to retain a free market, and to retain corporate machinery, then this isn’t protecting anyone from greedy corporate machines, it’s just changing the flag flown by those machines.

What it does do is completely undermine the business model of hardware makers like Apple. Apple sells hardware and software and services as a package. If you force them to break that model, they’ll lose the ability to co-design those layers. They’ll lose the incentive to innovate in hardware and ecosystems because they can no longer profit from those investments. We’ll see a general degradation in the quality of hardware in mobile devices similar what we’ve seen in the commodity PC industry.

 

[JosephAW]

So much for Windows.

 

[AdonisSMU]

I don’t want my data shared with people I didn’t authorize. Wtf is that?!

 

[mikehalloran]

This has been fought before except with Windows and Internet Explorer. I imagine that trying to enforce this will be like watching a clown car and that Apple, Google et al will find some legal workaround to let consumers do what they want. It will be a PIA for consumers but only temporary.

In other words, they’ll make users jump through hoops for nothing.

 

[mikehalloran]

I don’t want my data shared with people I didn’t authorize. Wtf is that?!

Good luck with that. Tell us how that works out, ok? Count the number of years you’ve been on the internet. That’s how long you’ve been sharing data with entities you didn’t authorize.

 

[insomniac86]

The stupidity with the world is so very strong these days.

Users can go and download the app they prefer and uninstall the Apple app they don’t like. Pretty simple.
The idea for Apple to not have the right to include their own default apps is insane along with people that agree. Seriously.

Apple offer a hardware product and their own software products to work with it. The two technologies together is the “user experience”.

It’s exactly the same concept if we all bitched that Toyota cars shouldn’t have their own parts included because there’s other car manufacturers out there and that’s not fair. So when I buy a new car from Toyota in the future, I’ll get to choose what brand of steering wheel, what Tyers, what brakes, what seats, brand of speakers and maybe even engine. 🙄
How ridiculous the out of box user experience would be for the non IT savvy user, you know most the worlds population.

On Samsung phones a bunch of duplicate functionality apps are preinstalled.
And it’s exactly why I deal with clients moaning that their contacts, email accounts, photos and the like are all spread over multiple apps that they had no idea they were different apps to begin with.

That makes for a horrible user experience.
What Apple NEEDS to do is:

-allow for any application (apart from AppStore, System Settings, Phone) to be uninstalled.

-allow for application defaults to be set for all services/solutions/apps that Apple offer. Eg. default maps, messaging, music, camera, calendar, notes, email, web browser, reminders etc.

Requiring that companies like Apple would need to promote Spotify on their own website is ludicrous.

Requiring that companies are forced to share user data with other companies is INSANE. Isn’t that against the privacy laws they tried so hard to put in place? I the user want to control who has my data thank you very much.



I think I’ve read enough stupid tonight to fill my quota for the next 5 years.

 

[MacDaddyPanda]

Why is the world heading towards Draconianism. WTF? The new EU should just rename themselves Draconia after Brexit is complete. Draconisians will form a new constitution.

 

[applesith]

Starts with forcing data sharing. When this doesn’t work, will they force successful companies to just share their money with smaller players?

 

[Moakesy]

So Apple / google will be forced to share data with the 'little guys' as well. These other companies could (and will) be anyone and everyone, good and bad. Jeez

Next up from the EU.....car manufacturers will be forced to stop shipping cars with their own engines, as it's anti-competitive!!

/s

 

[Doomtomb]

Forcing shared data with competitors creeps me out even more.

 

[MacDaddyPanda]

Well Comminfornia has banned the sale of Gas cars come 2035. This is insanity.

 

[johannnn]

So I buy a $1000 phone, and then I have to manually install a browser. And then a SMS app. And then a phone app. And then a music app. And then a weather app. And then a stock app. And then a Reminder app. And then a calendar app. And then a note app. And then a podcast app. And then a calendar app.

What an amazing experience! Thanks EU!

 

[Icy1007]

Ridiculous pen-pusher bureaucracy.

I’d rather have the apps I know preloaded (with the option to delete them) than be forced to add them to my lengthy download queue.

Glad the UK is leaving now. Hopefully we won’t be adopting this.

Well, theoretically, based on the language in this act, there won't even be a way to download apps since there won't be any software preinstalled. lol

 

[catean]

Hope Apple, Google and MS just refuse to sell and devices in the EU. See how they like that

We will go back to our Nokias .

 

[2979382]

I am the customer and I want literally none of the changes they are proposing. Also, how in God's name did we end up voting for politicians so incredibly dumb, inept and technologically incompetent that we end up with proposals like these?!? I'd like to "uninstall" them from their cushy overpaid EU seats. I want my vote back!

 

[cupcakes2000]

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[cupcakes2000]

Translation: The US is a freer country than the EU. Thats how many in the US see it. Its always a trade off. There is no perfect balance. The US optimizes differently.

Free to be slowly poisoned by chlorinated chicken? Free to drink milk laced with antibiotics?

The EU isn’t a country by the way.

 

[jz0309]

Bureaucrats at their best... this is plain dumb stupid, while I think consumers should have a choice, this is taking it way too far