Apple decided not to roll out Siri in EU after denied request for exemption • Hacker News Board

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

#441

Post by theshrike79 » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 7:55 PM UTC

bigyabai wrote: post #269

theshrike79 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple PCC is using completely mad and paranoid amounts of security down to hardware and firmware level making sure nobody at any point of the supply chain can access the data. EU can’t and won’t enforce the same rigour for 3rd party cloud AI. Which is the problem for Apple. If said 3rd party service leaks private data, guess which company is going to be in the BIG HEADLINE and which one will hardly be mentioned in th…

> EU can’t and won’t enforce the same rigour for 3rd party cloud AI. Which is the problem for Apple. Why should they? If the user decides to trust a third party, Apple shouldn't retain veto power for the customer's choice. This is how macOS treats apps like OpenClaw. It can absolutely work for iOS too.

But how many users are legitimately capable of evaluating how privacy preserving a random Cloud AI provider is?

Let's remember that a tiny company called Meta had a "VPN" they provided for users that just happened to spy on them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39881962

And that went on for a long while before it was noticed.

Now imagine the same situation but an infinite whack-a-mole of alternative AI providers and just regular folk who will install mobile games from a frozen baby ad...

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

#442

Post by redviperpt » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 7:55 PM UTC

Nifty3929 wrote: post #319

burnte wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Exactly, that's actually why I LIKE this decision so much. I'm not on Apple's side, but I REALLY like the idea that a company just says, "Fine, we'll comply by not even offering this product." It's a perfectly legitimate choice, and it FORCED Apple to evaluate the pros and cons. I…

Yes, exactly! Also forced EU voters to consider how much they value these services, and whether the regulations are worth it not to have them, or to have watered down versions of them. I say this without judgment - I see it as a legitimate area of consideration. I think the worst is hugely impactful laws for which exceptions are constantly carved out so nobody can truly evaluate whether the law/reg is a good one or n…

EU "voters" don't get a say in any of this.

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

#443

Post by cosmic_cheese » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 7:55 PM UTC

atraac wrote: post #392

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #304

While I can sympathize with the desire for interoperability (I too pine for the days of Adium/Pidgin), the EU’s approach to all of this feels needlessly and potentially harmfully heavy-handed. They basically make it an existential risk to build your success on anything nicely and neatly tightly vertically integrated. Everything must be dragged down to mediocrity by the unavoidable slippage between mandated abstractio…

These laws only apply to megacorps. It's not an existential risk to them, as Apple is clearly proving now. Who is saying that enforcing companies to open their systems to competition is making them mediocre? Maybe if that's the end result, they should put more time into designing systems that wouldn't become mediocre just by allowing third parties to do things with those said systems? We need to stop defending corpor…

Megacorps weren't always giants and it's not unusual for small companies to eventually become giants through excellent vertically-integrated products, and such companies would become subject to these regulations.

Interoperability is not free. One of the trades it brings is a notably lowered ceiling in terms of tightness and capabilities, and this persists no matter how many man-hours are poured into engineering the systems that enable it.

The Linux desktop is a great example of this at play. While it's technically worked for decades at this point, it's been a constant struggle to make it a high quality, thoroughly polished experience end to end and that's partly thanks to the unavoidable friction and gaps between layers that comes with interoperability and tens of involved parties.

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

#444

Post by theshrike79 » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 7:57 PM UTC

simjnd wrote: post #349

theshrike79 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple PCC is using completely mad and paranoid amounts of security down to hardware and firmware level making sure nobody at any point of the supply chain can access the data. EU can’t and won’t enforce the same rigour for 3rd party cloud AI. Which is the problem for Apple. If said 3rd party service leaks private data, guess which company is going to be in the BIG HEADLINE and which one will hardly be mentioned in th…

Ah, I see. I overestimated the amount of stripping / anonymization that was being done on device. Thought the server-side could be quite generic. Thanks!

Naturally the server needs to know things.

If you want it to, for example, summarise your HRV or menstrual cycle you can't anonymise it or you don't have any data to analyse. It'd be just "wink wink nudge nudge" with zero context.

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

#445

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 7:58 PM UTC

shykes wrote: post #429

Nifty3929 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly! Also forced EU voters to consider how much they value these services, and whether the regulations are worth it not to have them, or to have watered down versions of them. I say this without judgment - I see it as a legitimate area of consideration. I think the worst is hugely impactful laws for which exceptions are constantly carved out so nobody can truly evaluate whether the law/reg is a good one or n…

> Also forced EU voters to consider how much they value these services It's been a while since I left Europe, and I'm rusty on that particular layer of civics. Do EU voters actually have a say in this kind of regulation? Or is it all decided on the executive side which is only accountable to member states and not to individual citizens?

They do have a say. They can elect representatives who could change the legal framework and the incentives for the bureaucrats, or even remove the ability of the bureaucrats to regulate certain things. Then these regulations would not get passed and that would be that.

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

#446

Post by ghaff » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 7:59 PM UTC

burnte wrote: post #313

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. Exactly, that's actually why I LIKE this decision so much. I'm not on Apple's side, but I REALLY like the idea that a company just says, "Fine, we'll comply by not even offering this product." It's a perfectly legitimate choice, and it FORCED Apple to evaluate the pros and cons. I…

Yes. If a company in another country elects not to deliver a product or feature because of local regulations, consumers should take that up with their local legislators. That company has no obligation to sell something just because local consumers want it. And if those consumers want to bypass local regulations in some manner, that's their business.

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

#447

Post by seanmcdirmid » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 8:00 PM UTC

robocat wrote: post #412

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet. But they are probably working with Chinese partners (including the government) on releasing something (maybe with Alibaba models instead of Google models, on a Chinese-local cloud rather than google cloud).

A quick check showed it is estimated that Apple gets about 18% of it's profits from China but only maybe 7% from EU countries (ignore Apple's definition of Europe!). Maybe China is easier to work with - perhaps their rules are made clearer?

China has 1.4 billion people and they are rapidly increasing their wealth. The only surprising factor is that Chinese cell phone producers haven't eaten up apple's marketshare yet.

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

#448

Post by theshrike79 » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 8:00 PM UTC

benoau wrote: post #276

theshrike79 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple PCC is using completely mad and paranoid amounts of security down to hardware and firmware level making sure nobody at any point of the supply chain can access the data. EU can’t and won’t enforce the same rigour for 3rd party cloud AI. Which is the problem for Apple. If said 3rd party service leaks private data, guess which company is going to be in the BIG HEADLINE and which one will hardly be mentioned in th…

They've just announced PCC for Google Cloud using Nvidia GPUs and Intel CPUs so it would probably run on just about anything - https://security.apple.com/blog/expanding-pcc/

Of course Google has the capacity to run PCC. This isn't about whitelabel PCC being run by FAANG.

This is about Super Private Benoau AI being available for any user to install. How can they know whether it respects their privacy or not? The home page says that they're the best and mostest private ever of course, has animations generated by Claude and everything.

But actually it runs on servers bought from Hetzner's server auction and stores all logs in plain text in open S3 buckets and the owner actively sells the user data to the highest bidder.

This is what Apple is worried about and EU either doesn't care or doesn't understand the issue.

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

#449

Post by solid_fuel » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 8:01 PM UTC

christkv wrote: post #433

shykes wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also forced EU voters to consider how much they value these services It's been a while since I left Europe, and I'm rusty on that particular layer of civics. Do EU voters actually have a say in this kind of regulation? Or is it all decided on the executive side which is only accountable to member states and not to individual citizens?

None. The EU is getting more and more un democratic by the year. More power centralized in the bureaucracy vis regulations and other mechanisms.

You have anything to back up that claim, or is it just knee-jerk drivel with no evidence based on your feelings and distrust of scary government bureaucrats?

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

#450

Post by solid_fuel » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 8:03 PM UTC

viktorcode wrote: post #372

burnte wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Exactly, that's actually why I LIKE this decision so much. I'm not on Apple's side, but I REALLY like the idea that a company just says, "Fine, we'll comply by not even offering this product." It's a perfectly legitimate choice, and it FORCED Apple to evaluate the pros and cons. I…

You should remember that according to a court testimony the whole European area (which goes beyond EU) gives Apple 7% of their revenue, whereas breaking DMCA may incur penalties of ups to 10% of global turnover. Those numbers make withholding "risky" products a no-brainer strategy. Also, those numbers put a hard limit of how much Apple will want reevaluate their general strategy of tightly integrated first-party soft…

Why do you keep bringing up DMCA?

The DMCA is a law in the United States, it's not related in any way to Apple's decision to not roll out Siri in the EU.