In a significant development in the ongoing battle over Big Tech regulation in Europe, Apple has strongly criticized European Union antitrust measures aimed at compelling Google to open up its Android ecosystem to competing AI services.
The tech giant echoed Google’s own concerns, warning that the proposed rules under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) could undermine user privacy, security, and device safety at a time when AI capabilities are evolving rapidly and unpredictably.
What the EU Wants
Last month, the European Commission outlined draft measures designed to help rival AI services interact more deeply with Android apps. This would allow competing AI tools to perform tasks on behalf of users — such as sending emails, ordering food, or sharing photos — directly through Google’s platform. The goal is to prevent Google from dominating the emerging AI assistant space and to promote greater competition.
Apple’s Strong Objection
In its formal submission to the EU, Apple didn’t hold back:
“The DMs (draft measures) raise urgent and serious concerns. If confirmed, they would create profound risks for user privacy, security, and safety as well as device integrity and performance.”
Apple went further, highlighting the unpredictable nature of rapidly advancing AI systems:
“Those risks are especially acute in the context of rapidly evolving AI systems whose capabilities, behaviours, and threat vectors remain unpredictable as we are now seeing time and again.”
The company also questioned the regulator’s approach, accusing the European Commission of attempting to redesign Google’s operating system with limited technical review:
“The EC is redesigning an OS (operating system). It is substituting judgments made by Google’s engineers for its own judgment based on less than three months of work… The only value that can be discerned… appears to be open and unfettered access.”
Why Apple Cares
Although the immediate measures target Google’s Android, Apple has a vested interest. The iPhone maker is itself subject to EU demands to open up its tightly controlled iOS ecosystem. Apple sees the Google case as setting a dangerous precedent for how platforms must grant third-party AI access to hardware, permissions, and user data.
Broader Implications
This isn’t just another antitrust spat. It touches on the core tension in AI regulation: how to foster competition without compromising the very safeguards that keep users’ devices secure in an era of sophisticated AI agents.
Apple and Google are aligned here, both arguing that heavy-handed regulatory intervention risks creating more problems than it solves, especially around privacy and security.
As the EU continues its aggressive push within digital markets, expect more pushback from U.S. tech giants. The outcome of this consultation could shape how AI assistants operate on billions of devices worldwide for years to come.
MacDailyNews Take: Most of the European Union’s so-called “antitrust” measures are little more than legalized theft — extracting value from innovative American companies to prop up a declining continent strangled by bureaucratic red tape and incapable of fostering its own technological breakthroughs.
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