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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

#131

Post by anon7000 »

McDyver wrote: post #48
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…

It goes to show that privacy is not a priority. And it should be.

No, this is unrelated from privacy. The issue is that the EU won’t allow the new Siri because Apple isn’t willing to open up the system enough for 3rd party AI agents to get the same functionality.

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

#132

Post by flumpcakes »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #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 enc…

iPhones have pretty good privacy controls. I don’t see how they can’t extend those to cover AI apps. I imagine the settings menu will get bonkers though. User education about apps slurping up all your data is needed regardless. People just trust apple with their talk of private cloud computing.

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

#133

Post by naturalmovement »

What is the countdown to Germans outraged when someone from outside the EU is walking down the street and catches a fleeting audio clip of them which is processed by Apple's AI?

Does this mean the service will not be available to EU accounts, or will they geoblock access from within the EU altogether?

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

#134

Post by dzogchen »

There is a way to implement this functionality in an interoperable way that complies with the DMA. Apple just chose not to. Not because it's impossible to implement it in a privacy-respecting way, it just wants to lock people into their ecosystem, the exact thing DMA is protecting users against.

Apple realized its standard malicious compliance playbook won't fly this time, so now they're trying to sway public opinion by not rolling out this feature in the EU. It won't work. They're just going to lose market share and will have to backtrack when they do. Tech regulation doing its job.

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

#135

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #123
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you knew the restrictions day one you’d be able to engineer the system to accommodate them This slows down deploying the system globally. Particularly if the target is moving, it may make sense to build lightly so one can pivot, and then build in the compliance stuff after you know you have a winning configuration. The EU has its laws. Apple has its strategy. The only thing I fault anyone on is the public bicker…

I imagine complying with all kinds of laws and regulations slows releases in some way or another and having none of them would allow people to ship faster, so what makes these EU regulations so distinct? Do what you have to do to comply with the law and release, as always.

> complying with all kinds of laws delays release in some way or another and having none of them would allow people to ship faster, so what makes these EU regulations so distinct?

DMA was designed to be a comprehensive regulatory suite. Lawmakers knew it would be onerous; that’s why it only applies to large companies.

Also, the DMA’s interoperability requirement creates external partners. Let’s face it, Apple’s track record with Siri sucks. If they launch a system and it is crap again, they may not now want an entire ecosystem of folks who will cry foul if they dump the API and start over.

> Do what you have to do to comply with the law and release, as always

Just follow the law. If that means not releasing in a jurisdiction, do that and then don’t tweet snotty things about it. (Siri AI isn’t launching in China, either. I don’t see PMs complaining about that in public.)

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

#136

Post by inglor_cz »

There is a widespread expectation here in the EU that every vendor in the world wants to access the common market and thus will accept any regulations and limitations that come with it.

Given that our share of global GDP has dropped from 25 to 17 per cent in twenty years, with a steady downward trend, I am not convinced that this principle will hold for much longer, and this case of Siri may be one of the canaries in the coalmine.

If/when we drop to single digits, many vendors won't likely care anymore.

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

#137

Post by wmf »

joe_mamba wrote: post #54
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…

>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.

The new Siri isn't available in China yet either.

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

#138

Post by plorkyeran »

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).

Apple stock rises leading up to WWDC and then drops following the keynote every single year. People keep betting that this is the year that they're going to announce the next iPhone and the stock is going to 10x.

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

#139

Post by necovek »

spullara wrote: post #92
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…

Personally, I wouldn't want Apple to comply with this EU law and I hope that more companies refuse to release features with onerous requirements. Opening up all access to control the phone to some random app the consumer installed seems super dangerous.

Letting a US company (under jurisdiction of, say, US Cloud Act, but also unknown administration orders that might come) strictly control the phone for a privacy focused EU citizen (or more broadly, non-US citizen) seems super dangerous.

The requirements are not onerous, it is the basic preemption of monopolist behavior.

Qualifying "random apps" is something that is a true challenge, but that holds regardless of the API being offered — the problem is that Apple saves some programming API only for themselves, instead of introducing acceptable & objective market terms to be met (if deemed unsafe, they could require companies to demonstrate compliance with things like CRA to get access to these APIs).

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

#140

Post by crimsontech »

rvz wrote: post #40

Even when Siri AI is using a locally installed LLM (with optional cloud models with E2EE), the EU still decides that it is not even enough. This is why the EU is destined to lose and run itself to zero.

This is about the Digital Markets Act, its not the EU saying it isn't secure enough, they are saying users should be able to choose to use the same functionality but with different AI providers.

Compliance with DMA would have Apple hand over system-wide access to AI features to third parties, which could compromise user privacy and security.

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