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Apple decided not to roll out Siri in EU after denied request for exemption

reuters.com

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Re: Apple decided not to roll out Siri in EU after denied request for exemption

#51

Post by matthewfcarlson »

perlgeek wrote: post #28

Apple tries to market its product as privacy-focused, yet the privacy of their new AI features is so bad they don't meet EU standards? Is that the message here?

It's the inverse problem. EU wants anyone to be able to install a different AI agent onto their phone with the same access as Siri. Apple says "no- we need time to figure out how that would work, we want other agents to meet the same privacy standards of PCC/on-device that Siri uses". Which EU said no.

I don't think there's a clear good guy/bad guy here.

Re: Apple decided not to roll out Siri in EU after denied request for exemption

#52

Post by dgellow »

nromiun wrote: post #43

Apple stock is down more than 4% right now. That is a big dump for such a blue chip stock. IDK if it is due to this EU ban or Apple choice of going with Gemini (instead of making their own models).

The whole market is down

Re: Apple decided not to roll out Siri in EU after denied request for exemption

#53

Post by Aurornis »

gmueckl wrote: post #35
afavour wrote: post #2

Apple said "hey, can we not comply with the law", the EU said no, so it didn't launch. Seems pretty straightforward to me. I can see why Apple might want to request an 18 month exemption, there's clearly extra work required to comply with EU regulations. But on the other hand it also feels like a straightforward play for consumer sympathy: let them get used to using it every day for 18 months, then pressure the EU to…

Throwing infinite money at engineering problems doesn't move deadlines arbitrarily. But Apple's position here is actually really wild: Apple claims to protect user privacy all the time. But they can't offer a product in a major jurisdiction that has actually meaningful privacy laws? Didn't they consider that while designing the product? This is quite the contradiction.

> Apple claims to protect user privacy all the time. But they can't offer a product in a major jurisdiction that has actually meaningful privacy laws? Didn't they consider that while designing the product?

Complying with complex privacy laws is surprisingly orthogonal to making a product with good privacy.

In another regulatory area (not privacy, but something more historically regulated) we ran into strange situations where complying with the letter of the law would require us to walk back things that we had done in a better way. The laws are not simple and they're not written by engineers or even people who understand what future product needs look like.

Re: Apple decided not to roll out Siri in EU after denied request for exemption

#54

Post by joe_mamba »

eykanal wrote: post #38
afavour wrote: post #2

Apple said "hey, can we not comply with the law", the EU said no, so it didn't launch. Seems pretty straightforward to me. I can see why Apple might want to request an 18 month exemption, there's clearly extra work required to comply with EU regulations. But on the other hand it also feels like a straightforward play for consumer sympathy: let them get used to using it every day for 18 months, then pressure the EU to…

Google eng mgr here. I've worked on a few projects related to compliance with various government policies. This isn't "assign a two-pizza team to it, will be done in a quarter"; these types of compliance efforts can mean completely redoing multiple core systems to handle privacy, wipeout, audit, reporting, per-location policies, etc etc. These efforts can involve hundreds to thousands of people for multiple years. Su…

>These efforts can involve hundreds to thousands of people for multiple years.

And yet Apple had no major issues complying to the draconical demands of the CCP to sell and operate there. Weird.

Also, it's not like Apple can't afford the manpower for this. They're not a hole in the wall mon & pop shop.

Re: Apple decided not to roll out Siri in EU after denied request for exemption

#55

Post by frizlab »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #16
graphime wrote: post #3

Good. EU has the right to privacy. Apple also has the right to not conduct business in EU. If EU doesn’t like it, they can build their own sovereign software.

If they can comply with China’s unreasonable demands, they can comply with the completely reasonable EU demands. They already claim to care about your freedom and privacy. Now they can prove it.

They are not complying with China’s demand either AFAIK.

Re: Apple decided not to roll out Siri in EU after denied request for exemption

#56

Post by a_paddy »

frizlab wrote: post #39
a_paddy wrote: post #23

What could Apple/Siri be asking for an exemption from that Google/Gemini has already complied with? Accessing iCloud photos to edit them? Parsing email etc?

google/gemini has not complied properly to DMA in android AFAIK

Probably not, but it's still available. The DMA most likely would require the ability for users to be able to benefit from to the AI regardless of which email/photo/messaging provider they prefer to use.

Re: Apple decided not to roll out Siri in EU after denied request for exemption

#57

Post by nromiun »

dgellow wrote: post #52
nromiun wrote: post #43

Apple stock is down more than 4% right now. That is a big dump for such a blue chip stock. IDK if it is due to this EU ban or Apple choice of going with Gemini (instead of making their own models).

The whole market is down

But AAPL has a big weight on the market/indices.

Re: Apple decided not to roll out Siri in EU after denied request for exemption

#58

Post by zdragnar »

epolanski wrote: post #45
eykanal wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google eng mgr here. I've worked on a few projects related to compliance with various government policies. This isn't "assign a two-pizza team to it, will be done in a quarter"; these types of compliance efforts can mean completely redoing multiple core systems to handle privacy, wipeout, audit, reporting, per-location policies, etc etc. These efforts can involve hundreds to thousands of people for multiple years. Su…

Yet Gemini had no issues to comply with EU's DMA and release on all phones? Let's call it how it is: Android phones allow every competitor to run their chatbot in place of Gemini. Want Perplexity instead of Gemini? You can have it. Samsung launches with Perplexity as of late. Apple? As always, went into "ay mate, too integrated, can't give the same APIs to competitors" lame excuse.

If the options are "launch in the rest of the world quickly and get to the EU later" or "launch everywhere at once years after the competition" PMs and execs are going to choose the latter every time.

Re: Apple decided not to roll out Siri in EU after denied request for exemption

#59

Post by y1n0 »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #22
afavour wrote: post #2

Apple said "hey, can we not comply with the law", the EU said no, so it didn't launch. Seems pretty straightforward to me. I can see why Apple might want to request an 18 month exemption, there's clearly extra work required to comply with EU regulations. But on the other hand it also feels like a straightforward play for consumer sympathy: let them get used to using it every day for 18 months, then pressure the EU to…

> It's not as if Apple doesn't have the money to dedicate a team to matching the EU's requirements on a deadline. They just choose not to. The one legacy in Apple that Steve Jobs left behind is their distaste for taking risks that lose them money (ChatGPT was going to be their AI core... but then they had Altman ousted, so they backed away and partnered with Google instead), and spending money. I think they're still…

Well, whatever the real reason is, people do appreciate things they have to work for more than things given for free.

I’m not saying I believe that’s the real reason here. But it is broadly true. Ask any company that offers a free tier where most of the complaints and problematic customers come from.

Re: Apple decided not to roll out Siri in EU after denied request for exemption

#60

Post by FinnKuhn »

matchbok3 wrote: post #33
FinnKuhn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't have anything to do with privacy. The DMA mandates that Apple allows for competition, which (if you believe in capitalism) is good for the market overall. It's essential to stop big tech from abusing their market dominance. However Apple would prefer to not allow competition for their digital products on any of their hardware.

We already have choice - people can buy many different types of phones. Nothing about this is about choice or the free market. They want special treatment. Apple is free to do what they want. The EU can go and try and build their own iPhone (good luck with that).

> We already have choice - people can buy many different types of phones.

Do you really? The only two types of operating systems for phones that you could reasonably use are iOS and Android. So it's either Apple or Google.

Imagine a world, in which you could only consume Apple or Google services on those phones. No more Netflix or Disney+ on iPhones - only Apple TV Plus because the streaming video API is not available to third party apps. I think there are plenty of other examples to demonstrate the point.

A free market doesn't work if you have a duopoly. A free market requires the freedom to choose between different services, which Apple is trying to limit by only allowing Siri AI to access specific OS interfaces.

Not sure why some people on hackernews support more locked down operating system.

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