From PC Mag: Google is not being fully transparent with users about how linked Google services let the tech giant track user behavior and serve them ads, according to Italy's competition regulator.
In the EU, Google services like YouTube, Search, Google Play, and Chrome have been separated from each other since March due to the region's Digital Markets Act (DMA). Google is still asking users to link their different services together just like before; in Europe, they can choose to opt in.
But Italy doesn't think its residents are getting a clear or comprehensive enough explanation from Google on how the tech firm is using their information when services are linked. In fact, the Italian Competition Authority calls Google's framing of how it uses data "a misleading and aggressive commercial practice" and suspects that if Google was being more transparent, fewer users would ultimately consent to service linking.
Google presents "inadequate, incomplete and misleading information" and uses other unspecified techniques that "could condition the freedom of choice of the average consumer," the regulator says. But users who opt in to the linking can unlink them by navigating through those Data & Privacy settings to "Linked Google Services."
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