> It's additional software that many users didn't ask for, don't want and will not be aware of
You just described 95% of the parts of all software, especially in this era. And think of the Web - how many gigabytes of terrible adtech and tracking code does the average user download in a month of web browsing without an adblocker? Remember, each one probably packages in a couple hundred NPM dependencies into its bundle.
I don't have even a single use for Siri on my Mac. It's useless AND redundant with the Siri that I have to have on my phone, yet Apple downloaded and installed "Siri" on there. If I install GarageBand which is the only first-party way to do basic audio manipulation, Apple installs at least 4GB of audio samples on my Mac.
None of this is to say "I approve of this exact thing Google is doing" - just that I agree with GP that this is exactly the same as what every big company (and many small ones) do every day.
The only "consent" we ever get is basically the all-or-nothing EULA we have to click Agree to in order to log in for the first time - the relevant terms are "Want computer? Accept that we will be shipping you all kinds of code constantly, for 'reasons.'"
You just described 95% of the parts of all software, especially in this era. And think of the Web - how many gigabytes of terrible adtech and tracking code does the average user download in a month of web browsing without an adblocker? Remember, each one probably packages in a couple hundred NPM dependencies into its bundle.
I don't have even a single use for Siri on my Mac. It's useless AND redundant with the Siri that I have to have on my phone, yet Apple downloaded and installed "Siri" on there. If I install GarageBand which is the only first-party way to do basic audio manipulation, Apple installs at least 4GB of audio samples on my Mac.
None of this is to say "I approve of this exact thing Google is doing" - just that I agree with GP that this is exactly the same as what every big company (and many small ones) do every day.
The only "consent" we ever get is basically the all-or-nothing EULA we have to click Agree to in order to log in for the first time - the relevant terms are "Want computer? Accept that we will be shipping you all kinds of code constantly, for 'reasons.'"