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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

#501

Post by well_ackshually »

theshrike79 wrote: post #441
bigyabai wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Why are you so focused on continuously sucking off Apple and putting them up onto a pedestal as a precious baby of the industry that can do no wrong and should have special rules just for them instead of _suing Meta into the fucking ground_ and making sure that this behaviour is punished in ways that make it never worth it to do ?

"Oh no, there's a bully. Let me just find a toxic relationship and hope they spend enough time bullying my bully so they forget about me" isn't exactly a recipe for success.

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

#502

Post by bigyabai »

theshrike79 wrote: post #441
bigyabai wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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

Probably the same number of customers that are legitimately capable of evaluating the privacy of Apple's PCC?

Let's not forget a tiny company called Apple that once proposed Client Side Scanning to "save the kids" by hashing your entire iCloud. Apple loves demanding the moral high ground to promote asinine surveillance mechanisms with no safety guarantees for their users. Senator Wyden is adamant that Apple colludes with the US government to surveil metadata and intercept Push Notifications. Apple's definition of "private" doesn't actually entail privacy at all. Many third-party services are better positioned to protect their users than Apple is.

So why should users defer to Apple's arbitrary definition of privacy? It's obviously bullshit. If you're a traveling journalist, protestor or dissident, you might end up like Jamal Khashoggi for trusting Apple's services to keep you private.

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

#503

Post by ThatMedicIsASpy »

perks_12 wrote: post #499
yxhuvud wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about, DMA has passed in the parliament.

I'd argue the average EU citizen has absolutely no idea how any of the Brussels bullshit works in reality. We learned it in school once, very briefly, just long enough to learn it is a clusterfuck of chambers. We are told it is democratic, and that's it. Once you get older, all you hear is: Brussels forbids this, forbids that. The EU is ripe for disruption.

Tech companies are ripe for disruption and breakups.

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

#504

Post by orangecat »

vrganj wrote: post #395
bnj wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That is fundamentally how EU law works The intent matters, not the letter of the law. No loopholes, no bad faith interpretation. Just do what the law wants from you, if you make a mistake in good faith, you'll be given leeway to fix it. > When interpreting EU law, the CJEU pays particular attention to the aim and purpose of EU law (teleological interpretation), rather than focusing exclusively on the wording of the p…

No loopholes, no bad faith interpretation.

The endless cookie banners would beg to differ.

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

#505

Post by iAMkenough »

xlii wrote: post #435
t-sauer wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I understand Apple's position on this one Well then explain me this: There are absolutely no restriction on MacOS where I can give Claude free access to everything. If you are a Mac and iPhone user that essentially gives it access to the exact same data. Why is the data only protect worthy when accessed on the phone directly?

There's SIP. Claude can't install kernel extension and you can. (... and it just hit me why Apple requires specific reboot procedure to disable it)

SIP doesn’t protect user data, and I’m not sure why a Siri AI alternative would need kernel access.

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

#506

Post by bigyabai »

theshrike79 wrote: post #436
bigyabai wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even think it offers a meaningful degree of security. It's a form of theater, you have to be hand-selected to perform the audit that Apple promised. Most sysadmins know that hash matching only mitigates a small subset of rare upstream attacks. Apple could still be MITMing the whole thing (SSL added and removed here :)) and no auditor would get the chance to check. The offered audit is so weak that I would not…

If they're not "hand-selected", what would be the way to select the auditors? Just have an open house for anyone interested to come poke the hardware and software?

Have a set of clearly-defined requirements that doesn't randomly reject valid candidates? Nobody wants another opaque system like the App Store review process.

By the sound of it, Apple's offered audit doesn't include insight into the most dangerous parts of a system like this. This could easily lead to a situation where real security experts are denied access to promote influencer-adjacent Yes Men who rubberstamp the hashes matching without any question.

Hence my concern for "SSL added and removed here" - none of Google's famously backdoored infrastructure will be audited. For privacy purposes, Apple's promise is woefully incomplete.

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

#507

Post by jyounker »

Saline9515 wrote: post #465
solid_fuel wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why is chatcontrol being pushed every year by the european commission, while people and their representatives are in majority against it? Besides given the amount of lobbying in the EU institutions, it's obvious that citizens don't have a chance against corpos with infinite money.

And how is that different from any other governmental level? Seriously, we in Berlin got a freeway that nobody I know wanted or wants. It's not the EU's fault.

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

#508

Post by tonoto »

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?

It might be that we have a say, but there are a lot of decisions happening in Brussels that it "feels like" we, EU voters, don't have a say in. Such as: - Chat Control - Vehicle regulations (mandates on "eCall", disturbing audio visuals and other "safety measuers) in Regulation (EU) 2018/858 - Eventual upcoming ethanol restrictions - Ban on plastic drinking straws - Drink caps that are stuck to the bottles - Ban on plastics with one hand, on the other handd there are huge plastic enclosers for batteries, scissors and in countries with a "green" profiles, such as Netherlands it seems impossible to just buy one or two apples - you have to buy a emplastered six pack of apples (lots of waste if I just wanted one apple).

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

#509

Post by Muromec »

rambambram wrote: post #481
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…

> While I like a lot of Euro regulations, some of the privacy ones go too far with the whole "we're going to enforce this on the whole world" crap. Care to explain? EU is also a jurisdiction, so why would EU law be legal in other areas than EU?

Jurisdiction concept is not strictly bound by territory. Classic example is two parties based in two jurisdiction dealing with each other somehow.

Imagine there is a law in your jurisdiction saying if you hire a person there are rules A, B, C which are a bit inconvenient to you, the employer. What if you incorporate in a different jurisdiction where the salaries are higher but there are no rules B and C, but there are rules B and D. Then this incorporated entity offers to hire people in your jurisdiction, but not offer the higher salaries of the other one.

Which rules should apply? The answer, as usual, is -- "it depends".

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

#510

Post by smarx007 »

concinds wrote: post #161

Does not address Apple’s specific allegation, that the EU demanded that competing AIs have direct systemwide access to all apps and data, while Apple wanted to add an intermediation layer which Siri or competitors would plug into, and which would force the same level of user visibility (a popup at the top) over any AI’s behavior. I don’t know why the EU allowed Apple to intermediate other browser engines with Browser…

I think EU's position was that Apple can impose whatever rules and restrictions on 3rd parties as long as Siri is itself subject to ALL of those rules and restrictions. The restrictions were up to Apple to determine. What was not OK was to roll out Siri without restrictions yet impose them on other AI providers.
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