German competition authority investigates Google for market position

The Bundeskartellamt, Germany's independent competition authority, will conduct two proceedings against Google Germany, Google Ireland and Alphabet to determine the competitive impact of their market position, as well as to examine the company's conditions for processing user data.

These investigations by the German regulator under the new provisions of German competition law applicable to digital giants follow those already opened on Facebook last January and with regard to Amazon, communicated last week.

"Due to the large number of digital services offered by Google, such as the Google search engine, YouTube, Google Maps, the Android operating system or the Chrome browser, the company could be considered of utmost importance for competition in all markets," said Andreas Mundt, president of Bundeskartellamt, for whom an ecosystem that extends across several markets can be an indication that a company occupies such a market position. "It is often very difficult for other companies to challenge this position of power," he added.

Moreover, the German authority will also carry out an in-depth analysis of Google's data processing terms, as the new legal provisions include some specific instances of practices that may be prohibited if they are employed by a company of primary importance for competition in the markets.

Thus, the Bundeskartellamt will examine whether Google/Alphabet makes the use of services conditional on users agreeing to the processing of their data without giving them sufficient alternatives in this respect and for what purpose such data is processed.

"Google's business model relies heavily on the processing of data relating to its users. Due to its established access to competitively relevant data, Google enjoys a strategic advantage," said Andreas Mundt.

"A key question in this context is whether consumers who want to use Google's services have sufficient choice as to how Google will use their data," he said.