Comment by amluto
14 hours ago
I would love to see someone challenge this as an anti-trust violation. Google is using its market power (as the provider of reCAPTCHA) to actively prevent devices that don’t use Google Play Services from competing effectively.
It's worse than forcing the Play Services: strict Play Integrity requires your system to be signed by Google. So if you use the Play Services on GrapheneOS, you're still locked out.
They're only doing that because the EU currently doesn't want to antagonize US any more with their tech fines. Noticed how there hasn't been any as of recently?
> because the EU currently doesn't want to antagonize US any more with their tech fines
Yeah, I say it as "because the US bully the EU to prevent them from doing it".
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/10/google-meta-big-tech-6-billi... :
> April 2025: Apple fined €500 million for failing to comply with "anti-steering" obligations. Meta fined €200 million under the Digital Market Act for requiring users to consent to sharing their data with the company or pay for an ad-free service.
> December 2025: X fined €120 million under the Digital Services Act for breaching transparency obligations.
(Sure, not this year, but that's pretty recent by most standards. And not sure if they're still being contested and unpaid)
And recently, Google is working with the EU to avoid a fine: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-06/google-ma...
Alternative explanation: they're following the Meta playbook of releasing surveillance features during a "dynamic political environment" that's keeping their opponents distracted.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/meta-facial-re...