On Friday 11 June 2021, the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) announced that it was minded to accept undertakings from Google to settle its antitrust investigation into the company regarding its ‘Privacy Sandbox’ proposals. The CMA launched its investigation in January 2021, following complaints from industry, including Marketers for an Open Web, a consortium of…
The French Autorité de la Concurrence (“ADLC”) has announced a €220 million fine against Google for breach of antitrust laws by its advertising business. The ADLC opened an investigation into Google following the filing of complaints by News Corp Inc, Le Figaro Group, and Rossel La Voix Group accusing the internet giant of favouring its…
The German Competition Regulator, the Bundeskartellamt, has today announced an investigation into Alphabet Inc, Google’s parent company, in relation to Google’s News Showcase. The News Showcase is a platform through which publisher news content is available via a Google news website or app. It appears that the Bundeskartellamt concerns relate to whether the tech giant…
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) and the European Commission (“EC”) have both announced antitrust investigations into Facebook today. The CMA announcement indicates that the investigation will focus on “whether Facebook has gained an unfair advantage over competitors in providing services for online classified ads and online dating, through how it gathers and uses…
The Bundeskartellamt, Germany’s National Competition Authority, has announced the opening of an investigation into Google in relation to its data collection practices. The investigation will consider whether Google Germany, Google Ireland, and Google’s parent company, Alphabet, handle data in a way that constitutes abuse of a dominant market position. The Bundeskartellamt press release indicates that…
From the 1st of July, the NHS plans to collect and share patients’ data. Individuals are given until the 23rd of June to opt out by filling out a form and returning it to their GP practice. Opting out after this deadline can only be done in relation to future data. The plan is to…
On 21 April 2021, the European Commission issued a draft proposal for a regulation on AI systems, the first self-standing legal framework regulating AI. The regulation has a broad scope, imposing obligations on businesses in almost all sectors of the economy. It will not be adopted by UK law, but the regulation does have extra-territorial…
On 19 May 2021, the UK’s national competition authority, the CMA, and its data protection authority, the ICO, published a joint statement on finding a balance between competition law and privacy law when approaching digital markets. The statement highlights the overlapping importance of protecting both personal data and competition in the digital markets, and more…
On May 6, Microsoft released its plan to support customers by enabling them to “process and store all their data in the EU”, which should be ready by the end of 2022. Microsoft seems to be reacting to the market’s needs following the Schrems II decision (see below). Microsoft is calling this plan the EU Data Boundary…
Following the Queen’s speech last week, the UK Government has published the Online Safety Bill (the “Bill”), draft legislation aimed at tackling a range of ‘online harms’. The Bill includes the imposition of a duty of care on tech players, such as social media platforms, under which they would be required to take down “illegal”…
