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

reuters.com

71–80 of 735 posts

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

#71
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).

The EU is going to be China minus the technology.

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

#72
post #38
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…

Wow, Google must be a poster child for privacy then.

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

#73
post #27
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…

As I follow the situation, it seems that regulatory uncertainty is a major issue though- the EU’s requirements are framed in terms of outcomes sought, rather than in terms that can be quantitatively shown as met or broken. So it’s not a matter of dedicating a team to meet a list of requirements, but instead navigating the worst case scenario of enforcement if post-launch the EU determines that the proscribed outcomes…

EU laws are written like this to give companies maximum freedom in how they implement their solutions, not to lay traps for them to fall into.

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

#74
post #62

Interesting how the "groundbreaking Private Cloud Compute" cannot rollout due to privacy laws

Have you considered that the EU's privacy laws may simply be onerous and burdensome, and the fact that a web of red tape has caught another fly may not actually reflect on the privacy claims of "groundbreaking Private Cloud Compute"?

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

#75
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.

Appples architecture prevents them from seeing customers data (see Private Cloud Compute documentation). Data that Gemini Assistant (not referring to the distilled version Apple uses) see goes straight to Google. Big difference here.

Weird to say it but the only assistant with any guarantee for privacy by design is Siri at the moment.

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

#77
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.

It's not launching in China either.

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

#78
That's fine, good actually. I wish these companies would go further tbh.

Like when the UK banned encryption I wish Apple would have just disabled iMessage entirely there. Show a message saying that due to UK law, they cannot operate an encrypted messaging service there any longer. The backlash would get that law changed pretty quick.

Instead they disabled encryption for the UK, making all of us less secure.

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

#79
I understand Apple's position on this one. This is essentially a backdoor into all of your data. It is also a very useful feature. The EU regulators are disallowing guardrails without which this backdoor will be used to strip-mine people's personal data. The privacy implications are not legible to most people.

If I was more cynical I would suggest that this is being used as an end-run around encryption, since the encryption doesn't have backdoors for the government but this gives you access to all the same data.

When this backdoor is inevitably exploited in some very public fashion, it won't be the EU regulators that required the backdoor to exist who will be blamed.

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

#80
post #27
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…

As I follow the situation, it seems that regulatory uncertainty is a major issue though- the EU’s requirements are framed in terms of outcomes sought, rather than in terms that can be quantitatively shown as met or broken. So it’s not a matter of dedicating a team to meet a list of requirements, but instead navigating the worst case scenario of enforcement if post-launch the EU determines that the proscribed outcomes…

> but instead navigating the worst case scenario of enforcement if post-launch the EU determines that the proscribed outcomes aren’t being met

This is true of most things that involve legal. Laws are not code, in basically any jurisdiction they are subject to interpretation, and just because you've dotted your Is and crossed your Ts, doesn't mean an enterprising enforcement agency won't still come after you

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