German Google data probe targets heart of digital dominance
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Loading... - Debora Costa
- 16 Jan 2023
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In response to the warning, Google said its goal is to always offer products that meet regulatory requirements and put users first.
A German probe of internet giant Google is targeting the heart of what enables Big Tech to dominate markets in the digital age: data. That’s according to Andreas Mundt, the head of Germany’s antitrust office, and one of the sector’s most tenacious critics.
In what is set to become a landmark antitrust case, Mundt’s Bonn-based Federal Cartel Office disclosed this week that it had sent a formal warning to Alphabet Inc.’s Google over the company’s user terms. The regulator claims that the company gains a competitive advantage by limiting consumer choice about how user data is harvested. The case will focus on the benefits that Google derives from its data collection processes, Mundt said in an interview with Bloomberg News.
“Hardly anyone gets data at this speed, namely in real time, and at this scale, and with this variety, namely from their own websites and from many other websites,“ Mundt said. “With that much data, of course you can do more than competitors.”
Mundt is using the probe to flex powers his office was given two years ago to address crucial issues related to the digital economy, an area he describes as a “top priority” for his agency. The Google case builds upon a 2019 Facebook ruling in which the Cartel Office made global headlines by attacking the social media giant’s data-driven business model. Read More…
