If you had the feeling that the politicians who deal with tech stuff really know what it is, you could almost welcome this exhaustive surveillance because no one has power over others to prevent competition on different platforms.
However - and it may be that the leaked information that reaches us prevents us from understanding the motivations and objectives of the commission's investigations - both the conclusions and the developments that are leaking, seem more the fun of a group of parliamentarians who want to "inform" them. .
According to the information that emerged, the European Union plans to collect information from more than 400 companies to see if companies like Apple and Amazon are using assistants like Siri and Alexa as an anti-competitive tool.
EU researchers want to know whether Apple, Amazon or Google are using their voice assistants to check user data and create a hostile environment for their competitors.
"It sends an important message to the powerful players in these markets that we are monitoring them that they need their businesses to comply with competition rules," European Competition Commission President Margrethe Vestager said at a press conference, according to a Reuters
The EU argument on voice assistants is not new. In 2019, Spotify filed a complaint with the EU, saying that Siri's preference for playing music from Apple Music could dissuade users from using Spotify.
A lot could be said about each of the participants in this news: Spotify, like Tile, has activities that completely depend on the success and development of third-party platforms (Windows, macOS, iPhone, iPad, ...) any movement by the owners Una of these platforms can ruin your bottom line, as the added value they bring is very limited (and easily imitable).
Shelocking, the name given when a company -Apple- adopts the innovation that an external developer contributed (in its day it was the Sherlock application, hence the name) always has an interesting debate on the limits of innovation, if the developer is entitled to compensation if a larger and more enterprising company "sucks" its innovation, without consumers continuing to prefer it to the big one, or if the innovation must progress and it is the duty of the developer to have a path of added value that, whatever the great ones do, allows you to differentiate your service.
Finally, Margrethe Vestager just suffered a major setback against her claims that Apple paid unpaid taxes in Ireland, as the judge ruled that it is unfounded, acquitting Apple. Regardless of what they might turn to, and the ultimate solution continues to drag on for decades, her giants-defeating 'iron lady' appearance has been severely damaged. In addition to taxes, Vestager has Apple Pay inquiries, the one cited here by Siri and the historical one from the App Store.
