Google hit with Digital Markets Act complaint over user choice
European Digital Rights, Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte e.V. Homo Digitalis and ARTICLE 19 have asked the European Commission to open an investigation into Alphabet as they claim that Android's core platform service is designed in a way to 'deliberately hide from end users the possibility to even disable the pre-installed gatekeeper apps'.
'Android also goes to great lengths to intimidate end users who have found that possibility – displaying a warning message that 'if you disable this app, Android and other apps may no longer function as intended',' the complaint adds.
The complaint follows Alphabet's latest DMA compliance report, and discussions with Alphabet's representatives during a workshop hosted by the Commission on 1 July.
The DMA – which aims to regulate the gatekeeper power of the largest digital companies – became applicable in May 2023. In September that year the EU executive designated six gatekeepers – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft. Booking.com was added in 2024.
On 23 April, the Commission fined Apple and Meta respectively €500 million and €200 million for not complying with the new EU rulebook.
The investigations found that Apple was preventing developers from steering consumers outside its ecosystem to alternative channels for offers and content and that Meta's 'pays or consent' advertising model forced users through a binary choice to consent to give their personal data to target advertising unless they pay a subscription.
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