Google: Google, Italy come to an agreement on data portability case: All details

Italy’s competition watchdog, Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM), last year opened an investigation into Google over its alleged abuse of its dominant position in the user data portability market. In response to the probe, the tech giant proposed some changes and the AGCM has now announced that it has accepted them, ending the case.

The competition watchdog had concerns that Google abused a dominant position by hindering data portability rights which are afforded to individuals under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The probe was opened after an Italian start-up Hoda, which developed the Weople app, accused Google of hindering its users’ right to share their personal data with other digital service platforms.

Changes that Google proposed
Google proposed some changes – a package of three commitments – to its data backup service to enhance users’ ability to extract their personal data from the Alphabet unit’s services.
Two of the commitments are aimed at providing solutions to Takeout – the service Google makes available to end users for backing up their data – to facilitate the export of data to third-party operators.
Furthermore, the technology giant also pledged to make available a test version of a tool that will enable other digital service operators to access personal data that users generate through their activity on the company services like Search and YouTube.
“Moreover, as a result of the commitments, third-party operators interested in Google data will be able to start testing the aforementioned direct portability solution with regard to Google Search and YouTube services, at least six months before its actual release,” the agency said.
The new tool will be officially released next year, news agency Reuters reported.
“All in all, the authority deemed Google’s commitments as suitable to remove concerns over competition,” the AGCM was quoted as saying.
Google faced a fine of up to 10% of its annual global sales if found guilty of abusing its position. In 2022, the company achieved a turnover of $282.8 billion, the agency highlighted.