Google may let you choose which of its services are linked, thanks to EU

Lee Duna@lemmy.nz to Technology@lemmy.world – 196 points –
Google may let you choose which of its services are linked, thanks to EU
androidauthority.com
17

Good Guy EU

Just wait for some corporate white knight to come here and explain how EU is stopping innovation. Love these guys, I always have a bag of popcorn at the ready.

REEEEEE MUH LIGHTNING PORT REEEEE IT WAS SUCH INNOVATION REEEEEEEE USBC KILLED MUH 11 YEAR OLD USB2.0 SPEED CONNECTOR

Google may be forced by the EU to give you the freedom to choose which services are linked*

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) is an EU law that takes effect on March 6, 2024. As a result of the DMA, in the EU, Google offers you the choice to keep certain Google services linked.

Gotta love the weaselly language.

I'm wondering if they try to slither out of actually complying with the law.

  • They say they will unlink whatever "Ad Services" is and everything else. IMO they should unlink customer ad profiles from other service accounts, which I don't expect them to do.
  • The whole point of the DMA is not just to have Google unlink your Youtube account from your Gmail account, but that they provide the same level of service and integration to outside services as with their own, without prioritizing their own. That means that I should be able to use Google Chrome and Search together to the same degree as Firefox and Search. Execs at Google are on record saying the only point of them developing Chrome is to do stuff that is now against the law in Europe. I wonder if they find a new business model or keep the current, illegal one.

I'm sure they'll do it in a way that's convenient and doesn't require 14 clicks through obnoxiously designed popups every single time you use a Google service. Yep, certainly no way this could go wrong.

They just need to put it in the regular account settings and not a single person on the planet will figure out how to get to them and change them.

Law says that they can't favour their own service over that of their competitors. I guess they'll break it though.

and when they're caught, they'll dispute the claims with regulators, like every company does all the time.

i remember digging a bit into the french data protection office v. discord a while back, when they got hit with sanctions for not respecting gdpr, and they disputed every single claim, sometimes arguing in real bad faith, like them claiming they handle very little private user data, so they don't need to do data protection analysies like the law says.

considering google's sheer empire on data, i imagine they play the same tricks, but like 1000× worse

The EU seems like the only major entity actually trying at this point. They deserve a huge thanks in my book.

Next update - "Google to shut down Chrome in the EU"

"Google to kill its own browser monopoly and encourage competition instead by leaving a market bigger than the US open"

Cool. When can I have another location or backup provider on my Android phone?