It's interesting how so many online discussions of internet privacy devolve into nationalist chest-beating. I'm beginning to suspect that people don't inherently value privacy all that much -- they just want to brag about how their country is the most private.

Recall that the premise of this thread is that the EU should sponsor an alternative to Android. The EU vs US question isn't really topical, since no one suggested that the US government should sponsor an alternative to Android instead.

I do not think it is righteous or enlightened when the American government flexes control over the tech sector. I can see how Europeans might have thought this about the EU when it was just GDPR, but subsequent developments have recast all of this as being about government control and keeping the tech industry “in its place” rather than a commitment to privacy and freedom in and of themselves. I think that ought to temper the righteousness.

What subsequent developments? It sounds like you are alluding to the DMA.

The DMA is an attempt to reclassify what “market” means in the modern age where we have a global tech oligopoly. This is because a simple “test” for monopolism doesn’t work in this world of multinational megacorps.

Again, your complaint is a double standard. You are doing similar in the USA - albeit without an actual structured act - as per the recent rulings on the Google Play store.

The EU has simply codified the rules for their vision of the future where people aren’t beholden to a handful of tech overlords, whereas the USA is making similar incremental “changes” through case-law. I’m not saying either way is correct, but it seems like they are both headed in the same direction.