Google has faced antitrust complaints in Europe since late 2010, but the latest round of charges the search giant faces may be difficult to turn back or defeat, as a new report in Wired explores.
The original complaints, brought by Microsoft as well as a small UK company called Foundem, focus on allegations that Google was favoring its own services such as Maps through its search engine:
Foundem is still fighting the case (obliquely criticizing Microsoft in a blog post after the software giant summarily left it behind). This fight concerns the way Google builds its algorithms behind the scenes, and if Google loses, it could not result in enormous fines, but also affect how Google is able to promote itself in Europe.
But the newer ones take a different tack, as Wired notes:
Critics complain that the company forces smartphone makers to favor its services when building phones with Android, and they allege Google requires online outfits to show a certain percentage of Google ads when using its search engine on their websites.
Google now faces enormous amounts of ill-will in the EU, and not only from tiny players like Foundem. Giant publishing houses and retailers, which have enormous clout in Europe, feel the Google search engine has stolen their mojo, and these are the companies tied up in the latest round of complaints. Years of resentment have come to a head.
Wired's report also notes that Google's reliance on machine learning to improve and automate its services and platforms could over time put it in a logistical and legal pickle in the EU:
Some critics argue that because Google has access to a disproportionate amount of online data, its neural nets maybe provide the company with an insurmountable competitive advantage.
But Europe’s stricter privacy regime could also curtail Google’s access to much of that data. The EU recently unveiled new privacy regulations that could bar the company from using neural nets that train on certain personal data. What’s more, the regulations give individuals the right to ask Google how it made specific decisions related to their personal info. ... that’s not something that Google can easily do.
Analysis: AI and Big Data, Meet Personal Privacy Laws
Google and other tech companies are in for a shock in Europe when data privacy laws are applied to algorithmic collection processes and synthetic PII (personally identifiable information), says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Steve Wilson. "This is the great power of technology neutral privacy laws. They don't care how personal information is collected. They work to restrain the collection and use of personal information in general, whether it is collected by questionnaire or whether it is created by data mining and data refining."
"This is crucial and I think it has yet to dawn on people," Wilson adds. "If AI works out personal things about us, indirectly, then that is a form of collection and as such it can breach privacy. Even if the PII generated by computers, is 'untouched by human hands,' as it were."
"They say Big Data gets to know consumers better than they know themselves," he adds. "But it is not an end run around data privacy rules. If you get synthetic PII about people through algorithms, then you are still accountable for it under data protection and privacy laws."
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