Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise tooling, and an automatic re-download every time the user deletes it. The pattern is identical to the Anthropic Claude Desktop case I wrote about last month, but the scale is between two and three orders of magnitude larger. This article does the legal analysis and, for the first time, the environmental analysis. The numbers are not small.
The real meat in the article is the total abuse of every machine installed to. Illegal abuse. No consent. Hiding the evidence, reinstalling if it gets removed. And he barely touches the other concern, how once there AI will be used for anything you do on Chrome. The download impact is the least of the crimes here, but no one seemed to read the rest of the article.
That’s ridiculous. How is it “illegal abuse” for an application to install new features on your computer? If you don’t like the feature then uninstall the application. This is how it works for all software.
It’s a local model so it doesn’t even have the privacy concerns a cloud model would have. Not that that really matters because Chrome is a privacy concern in and of itself already.
I mean, you could read about it. It’s all in the linked article, no reason for me to repeat it all.
I did read the article. You clearly read more into it than I did, so perhaps you should explain what your interpretation of it was.
Like I said, the argument presented in the article is ridiculous. Obviously the law does not forbid applications from installing new features in updates. I can’t believe I have to explain this to an adult.
Well, you read it, so you read the Directive as well, which is specific about what is and isn’t okay. I guess you’re fine with Google and whomever else just using your computer for whatever purpose they need. The law is written to keep such activity narrow and for the application’s intended purpose, period. Now perhaps the EULA (that no one reads) is written to allow a lot of flex, and that’s where they think they can keep it legal.
It reinstalls itself if you try to remove it normally. It’s named so as to not be easy to find (especially since there wasn’t any prompt letting you know it was being installed, or asking permission). It is more than a local AI, it’s connecting outside and being used beyond a controlled action.
As an adult (since we had to go there and not just discuss it like adults), that all sounds not very trustworthy or legal to me. And while I don’t use Chrome because of its other problems, a lot of people do, people that aren’t going to be the wiser because of this “normal” update.
Yeah, and like I said, claiming that the directive forbids software from installing its features on your computer is patently ridiculous. The directive is trying to forbid tracking cookies and doesn’t cover anything the user explicitly requests to install. When the user installs Google Chrome, they’re explicitly installing Google Chrome and its features, including the AI features, and so the directive does not apply. If the user doesn’t like what the software does, they can choose to uninstall it.
This interpretation of the directive would also make all automatic updates illegal, be it Chrome extensions, Chrome itself, Windows Update, Steam’s game updates, etc. Which, you know, is obviously not the case. So I must belabour the point: the argument is absolutely ridiculous.