Apple files an EU submission criticizing draft DMA measures that would require Google to give competing AI services access to Android apps, citing privacy risks
Apple (AAPL.O) on Wednesday echoed Google's criticism of EU antitrust regulators' efforts to force the search giant …
Context & Ripple Effects
The EU’s April draft DMA proposals would require Google to open Android apps to rival AI services. Google has already characterized that approach as interventionist; Apple’s submission adds a second major platform operator’s privacy-and-security objection.
The dispute extends an established DMA fault line. Apple has previously argued that interoperability demands, including requests associated with Meta, can expose users to privacy and security risks, while EU enforcement has focused on making gatekeeper platforms more accessible to rivals.
First-order effects
- Apple’s intervention strengthens Google’s opposition to the Android AI-access measures and gives EU regulators a shared platform-security critique to address during the draft’s review.
- Competing AI providers seeking access to Android apps face greater uncertainty over the scope and safeguards of any eventual interoperability obligation.
Second-order effects
- The debate shifts from whether Android should be opened to rival AI services toward the technical limits, data-access rules, and liability protections that would govern that access.
- Other DMA-designated platforms can point to the Apple-Google alignment when resisting interoperability requirements that reach deeply into app functions or user data.
Third-order effects
- If the EU proceeds, DMA enforcement is likely to become a central mechanism for determining how much control mobile platform operators retain as AI assistants compete for access to user-facing software.
- The recurring privacy-versus-contestability conflict may produce more prescriptive interoperability rules, with compliance increasingly shaped by security safeguards rather than access mandates alone.
The trend: The story is part of a broader shift in which EU platform regulation is testing whether AI competition can be expanded through interoperability without weakening mobile-platform privacy and security controls.