7 ms·

I love GrapheneOS. The biggest downside is that Google integrity API block wireless payments in Google Pay. All Dutch banks now advertise to install Google pay

I love GrapheneOS. The biggest downside is that Google integrity API block wireless payments in Google Pay. All Dutch banks now advertise to install Google pay for wireless payments. I've tried asking Google to support GrapheneOS but they told me to do a feature request. Which I did and got no reply to. I've contacted the consumer market authority and made a formal complaint since Google and Apple share effectively a contactless payments duopoly and decide which OS distributions get access. Those are closed source and usually bundled with a lot of spyware. I also explained how the Google integrity API might affect banking availability in the future (and already does for some banking apps). They took it very seriously and I hope to hear from them in the future.

decide1000 1y ago
Did you do your complaint at ACM? I want to follow your example
- versluis 1y ago
  I did using their website form. It needs to be clear from the complaint that Google is violating fair market principles. They also like details about what exactly is happening and who is affected. That was why they called me after I filed the complaint.
  - Aachen 1y ago
    I would love to chip in and see if we can get this ball rolling, usually I feel like I'm the only person who cares or files AP/ACM/... complaints and then it's too small beans for them to care. I'd not submit the literal same thing again, but could you share what wording you've used? Specifically in this case I'd also not be sure whether this blocking of Graphene etc. is abuse of market power when there is another option on the market (Apple) and so it's not a monopoly There's no contact info in your profile so I couldn't reach you. If you don't want to share it here, you could use the email address in my profile
    - versluis 1y ago
      Good that you mention it. I will add contact details. It has been a while so I don't remember the exact wording. I wouldn't use the same wording since it is not a petition and doesn't add value. They want to research if it is an unfair practice. In my opinion banking and wireless payments is a common good. Having two companies, who only approve software of partners, most of them including unremovable spyware, is limiting on access to banking and privacy (although privacy is another department). I mentioned security since that is Google's argument for the block even though GrapheneOS is more secure than approved builds. I gave the number of GrapheneOS users to make clear it doesn't affect only a few individuals. I think LineageOS users might also be affected?
      - Aachen 1y ago
        It shouldn't work like a petition, but these organisations do treat it as such unless something is very obviously a major violation. Even with numbers of Graphene users, what part of that is Dutch? What part of that wants to use Google Pay? What part makes use of a workaround? Multiple reports of problems does give some information/signal that this is worth their time But yes, as said I'd not use the same wording because it shouldn't just be a copy-paste, that's also wasting their time. I could refer to what was already submitted so they can more easily bundle them, but I understand you don't have it anymore so np. Thanks for mentioning you've submitted this in the first place and the additional info, that does motivate me to continue also submitting things and to know better what makes sense to submit :)
palata 1y ago
> All Dutch banks now advertise to install Google pay for wireless payments. That sounds like a very big mistake to me. And a missed opportunity: in some countries, banked work together to develop their own systems. People can send money to each other and pay everywhere with a small app that is not BigTech from the US. I think there should be such an app in every country; you don't want your payment system to fully depend on US companies.
- argsnd 1y ago
  Generally what you're describing is in countries that don't have widespread adoption of NFC payments. In Europe almost every country has standardised NFC payments so Apple/Google Pay is the most frictionless option for users.
  - palata 1y ago
    Switzerland (which is not a country that doesn't know how to do banking :-) ) uses Twint (a Swiss app) with QR codes instead of NFC. To me it's better than NFC (it works with printed QR codes, e.g. on parking payment machines). I don't know anyone in Switzerland using Apple/Google Pay, which IMO is a national success.
    - argsnd 1y ago
      Switzerland is very backwards on retail banking actually. For example money transfers between bank accounts cost money, aren't instant, and can't be done on weekends.
- sushibowl 1y ago
  Dutch banks did this, it is called iDeal: https://www.ideal.nl/en/ https://www.ideal.nl/en/ iDeal is ubiquitous in The Netherlands for individuals sending money to each other, and for online payments. However it does not support NFC payments in physical stores. Dutch banks decided to go with Google/Apple wallet for this. I believe in the longer term Wero https://wero-wallet.eu/ https://wero-wallet.eu/ (and potentially the digital euro https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht...) is supposed to take over this usecase in the EU.
dopidopHN 1y ago
It’s great. Thanks for doing that. The French concurrence authority would probably love that type of reasoning. Specially now that the US is officially an adversarial entity.
ohgr 1y ago
I just use contactless cards now. I’m done with tying my financial capability to a third party device. If I want to pay someone directly it’s PayPal family and friends or direct bank transfer.
- encom 1y ago
  Yea, I really don't understand how using a phone is any simpler than just tapping my debit card at the terminal. There's no way in hell I'm letting Google anywhere near my personal finances.
  - darthrupert 1y ago
    Nfc card payments have a pretty low max limit at least without a pin. Phone nfc payments do not.
  - dnzm 1y ago
    Using a phone is simpler if all you have on you is your phone, which was my use case when my bank hadn't offloaded their wallet app to gpay. That, and having the phone already in hand for customer/loyalty cards. So yes, it's handy. Jot handy enough to use gpay for it, of course, but handy nonetheless.
hedora 1y ago
Thanks for doing that. I tried GrapheneOS a few years ago in the states, and the bank thing wasn’t a huge problem (just carry rfid cards because there’s no google pay/apple pay). The bigger problem came from apps that threw null point exceptions on startup when probing for google play crap. The following failed for at least one week over a two month period: parkmobile, multiple ev charging networks, uber, lyft, yelp. Is this still an issue, or are things more reliable these days? (Ignoring the Google integrity stuff.) I noticed that GrapheneOS got more than 2x Google’s advertised battery life until I installed Google Play Services in a sandbox. Then it dropped to advertised. You might want to add that to your complaint. Halving everyone’s battery life is easily quantified economic damage. (Privacy is more important than bundling $50 of battery, then wasting it, but easier for Google to wave away with big words and doublespeak.)
- hellcow 1y ago
  The app crashes I found were always due to the additional security hardening features in GrapheneOS. You can toggle these individually for each app.
- strcat 1y ago
  > The bigger problem came from apps that threw null point exceptions on startup when probing for google play crap. > > The following failed for at least one week over a two month period: parkmobile, multiple ev charging networks, uber, lyft, yelp. > > Is this still an issue, or are things more reliable these days? (Ignoring the Google integrity stuff.) These apps have worked reliability since our sandboxed Google Play compatibility layer added support for them in 2021. There wasn't a time period where these apps weren't compatible with GrapheneOS after they initially became supported. That was a problem with your setup, but there's no way to figure out what was wrong at this point. Updating sandboxed Google Play without keeping the OS updated is not supported. If you fell significantly behind on updates but were still getting sandboxed Google Play updates, that would explain why things broke. We sometimes gate those updates. We do keep things working for legacy extended support devices, but whether people are on a fully supported device or a legacy one they're expected to keep the OS updated. We don't keep compatibility with old OS versions indefinitely. Disabling the Network permission for sandboxed Google Play services or sandboxed Google Play Store is another possible cause. Regardless of the cause, that's not at all normal and doesn't reflect a typical experience. > I noticed that GrapheneOS got more than 2x Google’s advertised battery life until I installed Google Play Services in a sandbox. GrapheneOS will still tend to get better battery life with the same apps installed by the user unless you install a bunch of other Google apps to match the stock Pixel OS out-of-the-box experience. It's easy to make battery life worse by having multiple push messaging systems running at the same time though. Installing sandboxed Google Play in 2 separate profiles you always keep active could easily have worse battery life than the stock Pixel OS since it's 2 whole separate isolated instances of it vs. the stock Pixel OS having them built into the OS as highly privileged cross-profile system services.
strcat 1y ago
You can use Curve Pay for tap-to-pay on GrapheneOS in most of Europe including in the Netherlands. It also works in the UK, not just the EU. It unfortunately hasn't launched in the US yet. Some of those banks may also still support using their own tap-to-pay. Europe has a standardized system for it and many banks support it. Check https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/ https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa... for those banks. There was a major shift to using Google Pay to reduce their development costs but there may be a major shift away from it now. https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-guide https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu... should be sent to companies banning using GrapheneOS via the Play Integrity API. They can keep doing that while permitting GrapheneOS in a more secure way. Our users recently convinced several banks to implement it. Swissquote implemented it for their Yuh app and will hopefully do it for their main Swissquote app soon. It would be nicer if they didn't add Play Integrity API in the first place but progress can be made if users leave lots of reviews, support requests, etc. until they realize it's a big issue and either remove it or implement this as a replacement.
- pshirshov 1y ago
  icard NFC payments also work fine
ulrikrasmussen 1y ago
Thank you for doing that. Integrity API is fucking evil, and Google has somehow managed to sell it as a security measure even though it is all about taking control away from people and concentrating it at Google.

decide1000 1y ago

Did you do your complaint at ACM? I want to follow your example

versluis 1y ago
I did using their website form. It needs to be clear from the complaint that Google is violating fair market principles. They also like details about what exactly is happening and who is affected. That was why they called me after I filed the complaint.
- Aachen 1y ago
  I would love to chip in and see if we can get this ball rolling, usually I feel like I'm the only person who cares or files AP/ACM/... complaints and then it's too small beans for them to care. I'd not submit the literal same thing again, but could you share what wording you've used? Specifically in this case I'd also not be sure whether this blocking of Graphene etc. is abuse of market power when there is another option on the market (Apple) and so it's not a monopoly There's no contact info in your profile so I couldn't reach you. If you don't want to share it here, you could use the email address in my profile
  - versluis 1y ago
    Good that you mention it. I will add contact details. It has been a while so I don't remember the exact wording. I wouldn't use the same wording since it is not a petition and doesn't add value. They want to research if it is an unfair practice. In my opinion banking and wireless payments is a common good. Having two companies, who only approve software of partners, most of them including unremovable spyware, is limiting on access to banking and privacy (although privacy is another department). I mentioned security since that is Google's argument for the block even though GrapheneOS is more secure than approved builds. I gave the number of GrapheneOS users to make clear it doesn't affect only a few individuals. I think LineageOS users might also be affected?
    - Aachen 1y ago
      It shouldn't work like a petition, but these organisations do treat it as such unless something is very obviously a major violation. Even with numbers of Graphene users, what part of that is Dutch? What part of that wants to use Google Pay? What part makes use of a workaround? Multiple reports of problems does give some information/signal that this is worth their time But yes, as said I'd not use the same wording because it shouldn't just be a copy-paste, that's also wasting their time. I could refer to what was already submitted so they can more easily bundle them, but I understand you don't have it anymore so np. Thanks for mentioning you've submitted this in the first place and the additional info, that does motivate me to continue also submitting things and to know better what makes sense to submit :)

palata 1y ago

> All Dutch banks now advertise to install Google pay for wireless payments. That sounds like a very big mistake to me. And a missed opportunity: in some countries, banked work together to develop their own systems. People can send money to each other and pay everywhere with a small app that is not BigTech from the US. I think there should be such an app in every country; you don't want your payment system to fully depend on US companies.

argsnd 1y ago
Generally what you're describing is in countries that don't have widespread adoption of NFC payments. In Europe almost every country has standardised NFC payments so Apple/Google Pay is the most frictionless option for users.
- palata 1y ago
  Switzerland (which is not a country that doesn't know how to do banking :-) ) uses Twint (a Swiss app) with QR codes instead of NFC. To me it's better than NFC (it works with printed QR codes, e.g. on parking payment machines). I don't know anyone in Switzerland using Apple/Google Pay, which IMO is a national success.
  - argsnd 1y ago
    Switzerland is very backwards on retail banking actually. For example money transfers between bank accounts cost money, aren't instant, and can't be done on weekends.
sushibowl 1y ago
Dutch banks did this, it is called iDeal: https://www.ideal.nl/en/ https://www.ideal.nl/en/ iDeal is ubiquitous in The Netherlands for individuals sending money to each other, and for online payments. However it does not support NFC payments in physical stores. Dutch banks decided to go with Google/Apple wallet for this. I believe in the longer term Wero https://wero-wallet.eu/ https://wero-wallet.eu/ (and potentially the digital euro https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht...) is supposed to take over this usecase in the EU.

dopidopHN 1y ago

It’s great. Thanks for doing that. The French concurrence authority would probably love that type of reasoning. Specially now that the US is officially an adversarial entity.

ohgr 1y ago

I just use contactless cards now. I’m done with tying my financial capability to a third party device. If I want to pay someone directly it’s PayPal family and friends or direct bank transfer.

encom 1y ago
Yea, I really don't understand how using a phone is any simpler than just tapping my debit card at the terminal. There's no way in hell I'm letting Google anywhere near my personal finances.
- darthrupert 1y ago
  Nfc card payments have a pretty low max limit at least without a pin. Phone nfc payments do not.
- dnzm 1y ago
  Using a phone is simpler if all you have on you is your phone, which was my use case when my bank hadn't offloaded their wallet app to gpay. That, and having the phone already in hand for customer/loyalty cards. So yes, it's handy. Jot handy enough to use gpay for it, of course, but handy nonetheless.

hedora 1y ago

Thanks for doing that. I tried GrapheneOS a few years ago in the states, and the bank thing wasn’t a huge problem (just carry rfid cards because there’s no google pay/apple pay). The bigger problem came from apps that threw null point exceptions on startup when probing for google play crap. The following failed for at least one week over a two month period: parkmobile, multiple ev charging networks, uber, lyft, yelp. Is this still an issue, or are things more reliable these days? (Ignoring the Google integrity stuff.) I noticed that GrapheneOS got more than 2x Google’s advertised battery life until I installed Google Play Services in a sandbox. Then it dropped to advertised. You might want to add that to your complaint. Halving everyone’s battery life is easily quantified economic damage. (Privacy is more important than bundling $50 of battery, then wasting it, but easier for Google to wave away with big words and doublespeak.)

hellcow 1y ago
The app crashes I found were always due to the additional security hardening features in GrapheneOS. You can toggle these individually for each app.
strcat 1y ago
> The bigger problem came from apps that threw null point exceptions on startup when probing for google play crap. > > The following failed for at least one week over a two month period: parkmobile, multiple ev charging networks, uber, lyft, yelp. > > Is this still an issue, or are things more reliable these days? (Ignoring the Google integrity stuff.) These apps have worked reliability since our sandboxed Google Play compatibility layer added support for them in 2021. There wasn't a time period where these apps weren't compatible with GrapheneOS after they initially became supported. That was a problem with your setup, but there's no way to figure out what was wrong at this point. Updating sandboxed Google Play without keeping the OS updated is not supported. If you fell significantly behind on updates but were still getting sandboxed Google Play updates, that would explain why things broke. We sometimes gate those updates. We do keep things working for legacy extended support devices, but whether people are on a fully supported device or a legacy one they're expected to keep the OS updated. We don't keep compatibility with old OS versions indefinitely. Disabling the Network permission for sandboxed Google Play services or sandboxed Google Play Store is another possible cause. Regardless of the cause, that's not at all normal and doesn't reflect a typical experience. > I noticed that GrapheneOS got more than 2x Google’s advertised battery life until I installed Google Play Services in a sandbox. GrapheneOS will still tend to get better battery life with the same apps installed by the user unless you install a bunch of other Google apps to match the stock Pixel OS out-of-the-box experience. It's easy to make battery life worse by having multiple push messaging systems running at the same time though. Installing sandboxed Google Play in 2 separate profiles you always keep active could easily have worse battery life than the stock Pixel OS since it's 2 whole separate isolated instances of it vs. the stock Pixel OS having them built into the OS as highly privileged cross-profile system services.

strcat 1y ago

You can use Curve Pay for tap-to-pay on GrapheneOS in most of Europe including in the Netherlands. It also works in the UK, not just the EU. It unfortunately hasn't launched in the US yet. Some of those banks may also still support using their own tap-to-pay. Europe has a standardized system for it and many banks support it. Check https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/ https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa... for those banks. There was a major shift to using Google Pay to reduce their development costs but there may be a major shift away from it now. https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-guide https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu... should be sent to companies banning using GrapheneOS via the Play Integrity API. They can keep doing that while permitting GrapheneOS in a more secure way. Our users recently convinced several banks to implement it. Swissquote implemented it for their Yuh app and will hopefully do it for their main Swissquote app soon. It would be nicer if they didn't add Play Integrity API in the first place but progress can be made if users leave lots of reviews, support requests, etc. until they realize it's a big issue and either remove it or implement this as a replacement.

pshirshov 1y ago
icard NFC payments also work fine

ulrikrasmussen 1y ago

Thank you for doing that. Integrity API is fucking evil, and Google has somehow managed to sell it as a security measure even though it is all about taking control away from people and concentrating it at Google.