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.
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.