Google Search, Chrome, and Android are all changing thanks to EU antitrust law

The EU may not be perfect but they're at least getting shit done.

i hope someone brings up the choice for webview, too

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Google is testing changes to some of its most important services including Search, the Chrome browser, and its Android operating system ahead of the European Union’s tough new antitrust rules coming into force in March, the company has announced.

The changes come as a result of the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), a sweeping piece of legislation under which Google has been designated as a “gatekeeper” and given new rules for how it can operate important “core platform services.”

On Android, it’s introducing a new browser choice screen during initial device setup, similar to what it already offers to let users pick between different search engines.

The changes announced today appear designed to address the DMA’s rules about self-preferencing, under which gatekeepers are forbidden from treating their own services more favorably on their platforms than third-party rivals.

Several of these companies, including Apple, Meta, and TikTok, have pushed back against their designations in an attempt to reduce the impact of the rules on platforms like the App Store and messaging services like Messenger and iMessage.

“While we support many of the DMA’s ambitions around consumer choice and interoperability, the new rules involve difficult trade-offs,” legal director Oliver Bethell writes in the company’s blog post.

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I just used Google Search for a maps query yesterday and it is somehow so much worse with the services decoupled. The maps button has been severely nerfed.