This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL, Financials) told EU authorities that planned measures to force the corporation to share search engine data with competitors could pose privacy issues for consumers.The warning comes as EU antitrust regulators are preparing to finalise rules that would force Google to provide competitor search companies access to ranking, click and query data under the Digital Markets Act.Google Distinguished Scientist Sergei Vassilvitskii said the European Commission’s proposed approach to anonymization could not protect consumers enough because modern artificial intelligence systems have the capacity to re-identify individuals from shared datasets.In internal testing, Google’s AI security team was able to reverse some of the anonymization process in less than two hours, Google said. The guidelines are scheduled to be finalized by the European Commission by July 27. Failure to comply may see Google fined up to 10% of its worldwide annual turnover under EU competition legislation.The battle underscores a rising clash between authorities trying to increase competition in digital marketplaces and tech firms warning of security and privacy threats from data sharing mandates. Google said it was still eager to engage with regulators on more measures while safeguarding user privacy.
