Germany's antitrust regulator threatens action against Google. Here's why

The Federal Cartel Office — which is Germany's antitrust regulator — on Wednesday (January 11) criticised Google's way of handling users' data and threatened action against the American technological giant. According to a statement, the office sent Alphabet Inc, Google Ireland Ltd, and Google Germany GmbH, its preliminary legal assessment in the proceeding initiated due to Google’s data processing terms. "At this stage of the proceeding, the Bundeskartellamt (the Federal Office) assumes that the new provisions for large digital companies (Section 19a of the German Competition Act, GWB) are applicable and Google thus has to change its data processing terms and its associated practices," the statement said.

Andreas Mundt, the president of the Federal Office, said that Google's practices must be measured against the requirements under the competition rules (for large digital companies), adding, the tech giant has to give users sufficient choice as to how their data is processed.

"Google’s business model relies heavily on the processing of user data. Due to its established access to relevant data gathered from a large number of different services, Google enjoys a strategic advantage over other companies," Mundt highlighted.

The Federal Office said that based on current terms, Google can combine a variety of data from various services and use them to create very detailed user profiles which the company could exploit for advertising and other purposes.

"The company’s terms set out that Google may, for various purposes, collect and process data across services, for example by way of its numerous own, partly very widely used services, such as Google Search, YouTube, Google Play, Google Maps and Google Assistant, but also by way of numerous third-party websites and apps. This also concerns data from Google’s so-called background services, including the Google Play services, which to some extent gather data from Android devices on a regular basis," Wednesday's statement said.

The office reached the preliminary conclusion that users are not given sufficient choice as to whether and to what extent they agree to this far-reaching processing of their data across services. It also pointed out that the choices offered till now, if any, are not sufficiently transparent and too general.

The office is conducting an administrative proceeding against Google. The proceeding may result in the authority discontinuing the case, the company offering commitments or the competition authority prohibiting Google’s practices, the statement added.

The German antitrust regulator's warning comes after Google was classified as a company of "paramount significance across markets" in 2021. In December last year, the Federal Office concluded its proceedings against Google concerning “Google News Showcase” after the tech giant had made many adjustments to the benefit of publishers.

WATCH WION LIVE HERE