It seems like the European antitrust regulators aren’t done with Google yet. They have now announced that they are now investigating Google’s collection of data. This confirms that the world’s most popular internet search engine remains in its sights despite record fines in recent years.
The European Commission told Reuters in a statement that it’s conducting a “preliminary investigation” into Google’s data collection. While they have not revealed anything in detail, a leaked document indicated that the focuses were on local search, ads (including ad targeting), sign-in services and web browsers, among “others.”
So basically, the regulators are targeting the core business of Google. EU regulator told Reuters that “the Commission has sent out questionnaires as part of a preliminary investigation into Google’s practices relating to Google’s collection and use of data. The preliminary investigation is ongoing.”
With this investigation, competition enforcers on both sides of the Atlantic are now looking into how dominant tech companies use and monetise data.
In the past two years or so, European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has handed down fines totalling more than 8 billion euros to Google over allegations of restrictive ad contracts, anti-competitive Android policies and similar claims.
The company has also been ordered it to change its business practices. In response, Google has said that the company uses data to better its services and that users can manage, delete and transfer their data at any time.
