Google’s compliance with EU’s Big Tech rules gets Italian redesign

BRUSSELS — The European Commission may act as sole enforcer of the EU’s Big Tech rules, but a settlement reached between Google and an Italian regulator demonstrates there is still plenty of room for its national counterparts to drive the agenda.

The Italian Competition Authority disclosed on Friday that it had reached a settlement with the U.S. search giant to modify the design of its terms and conditions for users to consent to sharing their data.

The investigation, which accused the tech giant of using “misleading and aggressive” commercial practices to get users to link services like Maps and Search, thus violating Italian consumer protection rules, struck at conduct that is also covered by the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA).

While the DMA was designed to centralize digital enforcement in Brussels, it has not boxed out national regulators from pursuing Big Tech cases. 

Responding on Monday, the Commission welcomed Google’s Italian settlement and said the changes it foresees would be rolled out EU-wide.

“Google’s commitments are a good example of how the work of national authorities on consumer protection law complements the Commission’s enforcement of the DMA to achieve better results,” a Commission spokesperson said.

“Google will change its consent screens to provide clearer, more accurate information — both about how Google combines and cross-uses personal data and what the implications of consent are for users.”

The EU’s digital rules are a major concern for the Donald Trump administration, and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick raised the matter on a visit to Brussels on Monday. Lutnick called for the bloc to “take the foot off this regulatory framework,” and held out the prospect of cooperation in other areas, like steel, in return.

Washington’s main gripe is that the DMA, by design, targets the largest technology platform companies — and these are chiefly American.

In addition, Google was recently fined nearly €3 billion in an antitrust case in which the EU’s trust busters found it had unfairly squeezed digital advertising customers. The search giant last week proposed a series of tweaks in response to the landmark antitrust decision, but snubbed calls to break itself up.

Continental patchwork

In the Commission’s ongoing review of the DMA, some tech sector stakeholders have raised concerns that this could recreate a patchwork of national rules that the regulation is supposed to harmonize.

Google had argued to the Italian regulator that this issue should be handled by the Commission given its status as a gatekeeper, an argument that the Rome-based agency rejected citing jurisprudence that allows Italian consumer law to apply.

In its decision, the Italian Competition and Consumer Protection Authority said it had cooperated with the Commission on the case and engaged trilaterally on the remedies.

The Italian regulator opened the case in 2024, shortly after the DMA came into effect, accusing Google of using misleading and aggressive commercial practices to get users to link services like Maps and Search.

Google has now agreed to redesign the choice screen and prompt all of its Italian users to choose their data preferences once again. The broader design changes however will impact all European users.

“Following coordinated discussions with the [European Commission] and [the Italian Competition Authority], we are making simple updates to our existing information screens we show users, to decide if they want to link our services,” said a spokesperson for Google.

While the Commission has, to date, not specified its view on Google’s compliance with the DMA on data consent, the company’s solution has garnered criticism from consumer groups like BEUC for misleading users. In that vacuum, the Italians acted.

Nor was it the first national agency to do so. Before the DMA came into effect, the German competition authority had intervened in Google’s data use policy on the basis of its national digital competition rules, leading to EU-wide remedies that saw DMA-like rules extended beyond designated services like Search to others like Gmail.