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points by Freak_NL 1 day ago | 0 comments

Not an option if all banks follow suit. If this trend continues you would only switch to a bank who hasn't yet locked down their app yet.

Hopping banks is easy for just savings, but a lot of work and inconvenience for your standard payment accounts, and that's ignoring additional services like mortgages and insurance.

[–] microtonal 1 day ago

Indeed. It also fights symptoms rather than the underlying issue - that Google Play Integrity is an anti-competitive method that Google uses to shut out competition. The fact that Google-certified phones that are months behind on critical security updates (or even have malware in there updates as a recent case) do get a pass, shows that it is not really about security, but about destroying competition in the smartphone ecosystem as early as possible.

The solution is not voting with your wallet, but either leveraging the DMA or drafting new laws that counter this.

Either Google should be forced to approve secure alternatives like GrapheneOS or companies should be required to also implement AOSP attestation. Or alternatively, remote attestation should be banned completely, but I can understand the argument that it serves some legitimate uses.

[–] versluis 1 day ago

I filed a complaint at ACM (Dutch authority consumer market) about this a while ago since you need to be a google partner to be approved and that is anti competitive. They were very interested in this and even asked for a follow-up. I think they have an open issue about this. So it is a good idea to contact your national authority.

[–] braiamp 1 day ago

I love how people think "vote with your wallet" is an option on most "vote with your wallet" issues. If people could vote with their wallets they wouldn't have to, would they?

Vote with your vote for politicians for common sense regulations that favor the consumer at the expense of everything else.