Digital Markets Act Will Allow EU Users to Unlink Google Services

After the EU Commission designated Google as one of the “gatekeepers” that need to be regulated to ensure the openness of digital services, the company has detailed some upcoming changes to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act. Once the new EU law takes effect on March 6, 2024, Google will allow users in Europe to unlink some of its services to prevent data sharing between them.

The list of Google services that EU users will be able to keep linked or unlinked is detailed on a support page (via Android Authority). It includes Google Search, Google Shopping, Google Maps, Google Play, YouTube, Chrome, and Ad services. Users in Europe will be able to keep them all linked (as they are today), have none of them linked, or just keep some of them linked together.

“When linked, these services can share your data with each other and with all other Google services for certain purposes. For example, linked Google services can work together to help personalize your content and ads, depending on your settings,” the company explained.

If users choose to unlink some of the aforementioned Google services, it could impact some of their features. Google gave the example of reservations made on Google Search not appearing in Google Maps, and search recommendations becoming less relevant after unlinking Search, YouTube, and Chrome. However, the company emphasized that “aspects of a service that don’t involve sharing data won’t be affected.”

The good thing is that EU users will be able to manage their linked services at any time in their Google account settings. The option isn’t available yet, but it will appear under a new “Linked Google Services” section of the Data & Privacy page of account settings.

You may remember the time when Google tried to force users to centralize all their personal information via their Google+ identity. This was faced with significant pushback from users, and Google eventually backtracked and killed its Google+ platform. While the DMA will only apply to users in Europe, it’s still a positive change for users who care about privacy and data sharing.

The EU’s DMA will also force Microsoft and Apple to make changes to their platforms in March. As an example, Microsoft will allow EU users to uninstall Edge from Windows and choose other search providers than Bing in Windows Search.