The European Union is once again urged to expand its Google investigation under the Bloc's Digital Markets Act (DMA).
The major goal of the EU's flagship competition reform, which came into effect last spring, was to level the digital arena by forcing the platform giant to trade more fairer with rivals and users. However, alternative search engines Duckduckgo and Seznam.cz, along with a small number of local consumer and civil society groups, have accused Google of fling the rules. In an open letter addressed to the EVPS Teresa Ribera and the Henna Virkkunen committee, they urge the Block to apply DMA “fully” on Google.
Duckduckgo complains that Google's implementation of DMA selection screen and its approach to sharing click and query search data has been non-compliant since at least last fall. However, while the EU has open research at Google, the research relates to other aspects of DMA. So it's a push to expand surveillance in Brussels. An EU spokesman confirmed the receipt of the letter and said he would reply in time.
The timing of the letter also appears to be noticeable as BLOC is being pushed hard in the opposite direction by the offensive Trump administration, which claims EU regulations like DMA are unfairly selecting US companies. Therefore, there is currently a clear threat that retaliatory tariffs can comply with US major technology sanctions if the committee has forgotten to enforce the DMA first.