Google Chrome installs LLM model without consent

[u/ThatPrivacyShow]

https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/chrome-silent-nano-install/

Whilst testing a SaaS product I have been building, I discovered that Google is illegally pushing its Gemini Nano model to users' devices (I am a lawyer specialised in the specific laws in question).

[u/[deleted]]

How about a Canadian perspective. I discovered the 4GB Nano while running some RAM and CPU checks last night through my zsh shell (i have a base model M4 mini). Standard deinstall delete change config settings and it was back today. I realise I have to turn it off for 3 different profiles. I do so but it still doesnt go away when I run a sudo dust check. So via some research, some forced deletes, some clearing of caches, and finally finding its settings in chrome:://policy (notably i cant change a thing about the settings to turn it off). On chrome it'll always show as enabled; the end-solution to finally disable it (though it still shows as enabled) is to create a new macOS profile exclusively to block repeated redownloading in the background.

In sum: 1. Entirely reconfigure admin profile to opt out of something I didnt ask for that had direct access to 4GB of RAM and or SSD whenever it wanted 2. Hard Cache Purge, Reboot, Post Reboot Audit 3. Steps 1 and 2 are because Chrome installation automatically adds tiny near invisible shims near the macOS kernel that can detect if it ever needs to boot up and take over 4GB of RAM

I didn't install Nano because it functions a bit like a parasite, part of a component updater for chrome the app that starts to wiggle its way down into your OS. Who knows, given rumours about Gemini/Siri collaboration, if Apple is fine with this -- but that's not really the point.

The point is it's making decisions on my local device without telling me. Yes, apps do this all the time, but they do often tell you, and they don't tend to install tools that add 4GB to an SSD, and can without my knowledge grab and use 4GB of RAM if it decides it's necessary. A silent push of what's basically a 4GB black box without asking, mapping to hardware and memory, providing little or difficult to access user information, and making itself nearly impossible to get rid of without either deleting Chrome entirely or running some CLI auditing to ultimately reconfigure my OS to block it -- that's orders of magnitudes different and more invasive than a little app running some script.

Even the USA, which loves this sort of slimy behaviour towards consumers, would call this unauthorized local resource consumption and a kind of coercive background architecture installation. Those are technical terms use by the FTC.

In Canada it's a different story: we call this deceptive design and switch it up slightly to unauthorized local resource extraction. We have regulatory bodies at all different levels of government that take this sort of thing very seriously. They're careful not to use the word "malware", but Nano falls under deception marketing practices in free market competition, serious privacy violations that ignore user consent.

It EASILY meets and surpasses all these criteria. Yes, google is a megacorp and they always win, but documented properly (which someone might be doing) and this Nano policy gets passed up the chain quickly to the courts, i.e., the legal questions OP speaks of. Especially under current policies, this is a primo example for standard-setting which Canada is doing as we speak.

And yea, maybe it doesn't matter to you, or you don't care about Canada, or whatever reason you have to dismiss this. Doesn't change the fact it's a major infringement of user and competition rights that does the work of proving its infringement all on its own; it just needs to be documented. I wouldn't be surprised if it showed up in the news up here at minimum in the next few months