EU unveils ‘revolutionary’ laws to curb big tech firms’ power
www.theguardian.com
Digital Markets Act aims to allow more competition and let consumers delete preloaded phone apps
  • New regulations will target six major tech companies to improve consumer experience and data privacy. These include Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft.
  • Pre-installed apps like weather and email that are difficult to delete will be disallowed, aiming to promote interoperability and reduce “gatekeeping” activities.
  • Companies will be prohibited from monetizing user data collected from phone apps for advertising purposes.
  • The regulations will encourage competition by allowing alternative payment systems, benefiting startups and consumers.
  • The European Commission aims to empower consumers and ensure tech giants adhere to European rules, providing immediate accountability for any issues.
  • cheery_coffee@lemmy.caEnglish
    12·
    1 year ago

    Neither are Google apps. According to my Pixel YouTube is essential for my device to work.

    I can disable it but not delete it.

    Oh, and if I want any weather I need to give my location to all Google services.

    • ඞmir@lemmy.mlEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      Deleting it makes no sense with the way Android partitioning works. Disabling it prevents any of the code from running. The only way to find it again is to manually go into the settings of your phone and search for disabled apps.

      • cheery_coffee@lemmy.caEnglish
        6·
        1 year ago

        I’m new to Android, why is this the case? Are these apps stored in the protected OS partition?

        • ඞmir@lemmy.mlEnglish
          6·
          1 year ago

          Yes. Android has a separate partition with a fixed size that stores all preinstalled apps. Deleting one of them wouldn’t help with giving more storage for user files, all it would do is break the ability to restore everything with a factory reset

          • cheery_coffee@lemmy.caEnglish
            6·
            1 year ago

            Thank you, that makes sense but still feels unnecessary when they could install those apps with permission during setup.

            • ඞmir@lemmy.mlEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              Would take more internet bandwidth and make first boot slower. Would also reduce performance for thise apps, as this way they can have pre-optimized versions of every app.

              • cheery_coffee@lemmy.caEnglish
                1·
                1 year ago

                They’ll need to install security and performance updates anyway for those apps to function. And time to first boot doesn’t really matter, the user already bought the device and they’ll presumably do it exactly once in 99% of cases.