German regulator is the latest to go after tech companies

Germany’s Bundeskartellamt, the Federal Cartel Office, has Google in its sights and is also carrying out probes into other US tech giants.

What’s happening?

A year after being given new powers under the German Competition Act, the office has established that Google has a “paramount significance across markets” – including search and the infrastructure of the wider digital ecosystem – a determination that means it can now take action against specific anti-competitive practices by Google.

Andreas Mundt, who heads the office, said it had already started to look into Google’s processing of personal data and “to deal with the Google News Showcase issue in more detail”. 

Context

The processing of data is a point of contention within the EU. The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has come in for criticism from its European peers over its attempt to allow Facebook to target users with personalised advertising based on the ‘performance of a contract’ rather than by obtaining user consent. Politico reports that the EU official overseeing GDPR has rejected calls for the Irish DPC to be disciplined.

Sourced from Bundeskartellamt, Politico