Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 735 posts

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

#181

Post by simjnd »

slopinthebag wrote: post #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.

There is a saying "American trust companies more than their government, Europeans trust their governments more than companies" when nobody should trust either.

Sometimes a company's incentives are going to be aligned with their users, but a lot of the times they won't and consumer protection regulation is useful.

Sometimes a government will have the good of their citizens in mind, and a lot of the times they will seek money and power just like companies do. Lobbies, fines, overreaching regulation.

The UK (and EU's attempted Chat Control) is some fascist bullshit. But allowing you to own the device you paid for and use it as you please (including letting you install whatever software you choose to) isn't.

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

#182

Post by necovek »

aeontech wrote: post #89
gmueckl wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lemma 1: you want to protect your users privacy, and are also beholden to regulation enforcing that commitment (GDPR). Lemma 2: you are obliged by other regulation to offer equal access to user data to third parties, so others can build equivalent functionality (DMA). Lemma 3: malicious third parties will absolutely try to abuse the access and trick the user into sharing their data by all means possible. You will be…

I am not sure this is as much of a tension as you make it sound: where is the obligation that a marketplace administrator will be blamed for any and all breaches of data privacy trust from a participating (likely malicious) third party?

According to GDPR, the app developer is the "data controller" and thus ultimately responsible. Only in the case where Apple knowingly participated in unlawful behavior is it likely to be held accountable, and even then, in addition to the app developer. Obviously, if we are not talking about leaks from the actual App Store system (eg. Apple account logins and user data).

So while it sounds plausible, the legal framework is exactly not what you describe here — Apple can claim to want better protection for customers by not allowing third party apps, but EU rejects that (it can similarly extend to app store itself) and pushes for competitive landscape with DMA instead.

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

#183

Post by FinnKuhn »

slopinthebag wrote: post #169
FinnKuhn wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are phones running alternative versions of Android with no google dependency, and there are phones running linux. Those make up 0% of the market [1], which classifies Apple and Google as gatekeepers. [1] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/europe/

[flagged]

Them making the only phones anyone uses makes them the gatekeepers on what people do on their phones -> Apple and Google are gatekeepers under the DMA.

It doesn't matter how they became gatekeepers.

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

#184

Post by epistasis »

thinkloop wrote: post #95
epistasis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a reasonable question of whether the Siri stuff is even a feature that customers want. Additionally, money can not solve all problems, 9 people can't make a baby in a month, and if these sorts of regulations are serious at all like they are for medical regulation then you really do need to do the work of assessing risks, etc., and there's a chain of waterfall development to all that.

[flagged]

Does a baby build itself? No. Does the mother build the baby alone? No.

I don't think you can call the process unrelated to the mother or the baby, they're both pretty important throughout the whole thing.

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

#185

Post by simjnd »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #160
simjnd wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would only be a backdoor if it's implemented as a backdoor. The way Apple Health exchanges data with 3rd-party trackers (Fitbit, Garmin, etc.) is very well built and a good model of how other components in iOS could allow data exchange with very granular permissions. Apple touts the "Private Cloud Compute". If they found a way to share your personal context to process on their cloud in a private and anonymized way…

The technical problem is nothing like exchanging data with fitness trackers. One of the issues here is that there are many people with strong opinions that don't understand the thing they have strong opinions about. Which is the normal state of human affairs.

Indeed but you ignore my second paragraph: they have developed (and 3rd-party audited) a way to handoff all the data (parts of your Personal Context, etc.) to their cloud servers in a privacy preserving way on-device. Why couldn't the same process could be used to handoff the data to a 3rd-party AI provider? (genuine why, if you have an understanding of the thing you have a strong opinion about I'd genuinely appreciate the answer)

It looks like Apple is framing this as a privacy issue as a marketing tactic so that consumers will blame the EU when Apple COULD implement it without endangering privacy.

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

#186

Post by eykanal »

krzyk wrote: post #105
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…

Why does systems are not designed take into account that compliance work?

I assume you're asking this in good faith, so I'll answer in good faith.

Laws vary from country to country, state to state, and they vary tremendously. Laws are also changing all the time. There's literally no way to predict what rules will be in place at any given time.

Also, adding code to meet some government regulation takes time and effort that (form the company's perspective) could be better spent building a product and making money. No one would "choose" to implement some random compliance rule unless they're forced to.

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

#187

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #157
fnordsensei wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point isn’t that it’s easy or straightforward to do. The point is that one of the world’s wealthiest companies can spare the resources needed to comply with the regulations of one of the world’s largest markets.

> one of the world’s wealthiest companies can spare the resources needed to comply with the regulations of one of the world’s largest markets At what cost? This is Apple’s second bite at AI. Giannandrea fucked up the first time. I’m honestly with Cupertino on not over complicating it the second time around. If they found the right mix of features and architecture, great, then work to port it to high-bar jurisdictions…

> At what cost? This is Apple’s second bite at AI. Giannandrea fucked up the first time. I’m honestly with Cupertino on not over complicating it the second time around. If they found the right mix of features and architecture, great, then work to port it to high-bar jurisdictions.

I totally agree with you in principle here, but Apple have a pretty large vested interest in not supporting interoperability here (and in the other cases, like Mac mirroring) so I honestly don't see that happening at all.

This is purely a lobbying move against the EU to get EU citizens/politicians to complain about the laws and get an exemption.

And to be fair, Apple's business model is currently structurally incompatible with a lot of the DMA (which I personally think is a good thing), so they kinda have to fight it for a while.

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

#188

Post by simjnd »

jwr wrote: post #110

What does it even mean to "roll out in EU"? These concepts are so outdated it's not even funny. Let's say I have several citizenships, live mostly in the EU, but currently stay in Japan, do I get the features or not? Like app store regional gating and DVD regions, these restrictions are dinosaurs of the past.

You will get the features when you're in Japan, and have them for about 2 weeks when back in the EU, then they will be disabled until you leave again.

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

#189

Post by simjnd »

rusk wrote: post #31
mrcwinn wrote: post #9

The EU is only interested in interoperability and centralization of data so they can put their citizens under surveillance. I hope Apple continues to exit this market on the edges.

Ah yes the well known EU equivalent of the CIA, NSA The one that’s so secret it’s not in any of the treaties that the sovereign nations that comprise the EU signed up for and implemented in line with their own democratic processes That agency Meanwhile they struggle to put together a border patrol, but advanced pan European surveillance apparatus that isn’t run by the US. Yeah bro

I don't think they were necessarily thinking of one EU-wide agency, but the recent attacks on encryption including Chat Control which almost passed, a lot of EU countries voting for far-right governments. I do believe we still have it better than in the US wrt privacy (e.g. we don't have Flock cameras), but we need to be careful considering what EU governments have been doing.

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

#190

Post by m3kw9 »

flumpcakes wrote: post #102
m3kw9 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU privacy laws are not there to protect your privacy, its there because the law makers don't know how modern privacy works and wants their name on the law so it seems they did something.

EU has some of the best consumer protection and privacy laws on the planet.

Their laws are basically the equivalent of if there is no code, there are no bugs. EU laws forces citizens to get no new tech, privacy preserved.
Post reply on HN