As part of its proposed remedies in the Google Search case, the Department of Justice (DOJ) seeks to force Google to make user data, the Google Search index, ranking technologies, and query understanding accessible to competitors. This unprecedented remedy would demand Google share existing and future sensitive search and advertising data with a wide group of “rivals and potential rivals,” exposing the private information of consumers. 

Data-Sharing Would Allow Competitors to Free Ride on Google’s Investments, Putting Competitors Before Consumers

As CCIA’s Director of the Research Center & Chief Economist, Trevor Wagener notes, the goal of these remedies seems to be to benefit Google’s competitors, without considering the risks these proposals might have for consumers. The scale of the data-sharing proposed by the DOJ is extraordinary, and it could lead to significant privacy vulnerabilities for users who entrusted their data to Google. Even with the best anonymization techniques, ensuring that large, complex datasets are fully protected will be incredibly difficult and could lead to data being exploited by foreign companies.

— “The proposed final remedies make it clear that the extent of data-sharing is intended to allow competitors to recreate Google’s proprietary technology. For example, the proposed final remedies state that Google must make available at marginal cost its Search Index, as well as data used in (a) Google’s statistical models, (b) ranking technologies, (c) AI model training, and (d) digital ads auctions and technologies.”

— “Foreign-based companies could gain access to American investments that they themselves never had to fund, and which they do not have to share in return. Foreign technology companies not only do not face reciprocal requirements to share data or technology, but also often do not compete on an even playing field.”

Moreover, the proposed forced data-sharing risks consumers’ data and Google’s proprietary information being collected by China and other foreign rivals.

— “This also provides China and other rivals an opportunity to exploit American tech leadership, investments in AI, users’ data and AI training inputs. These are prized strategic assets: technology developed by U.S. companies and data from American users.”

The DOJ has no plan for protecting consumers’ data under this remedy. 

— “Forcing Google to share its data and its users’ data with a broad array of third parties raises serious privacy and national security concerns. The proposed final remedies attempt to handwave away such concerns, but it is difficult to require that Google turn over all inputs needed to copy numerous key Google models in many fields without revealing enormous amounts of valuable information to foreign rivals, as well as domestic rivals with potentially inferior data security.”

— “The DOJ’s proposed remedy hinges on a promissory note to create a committee to basically set, apply, and enforce revolutionary digital privacy standards, while providing no specifics on how they’d do such a thing,” said the Software Information Industry Association in a recent article. They added: “There’s also the very real possibility that beneficiaries of DOJ’s largesse, not subject to agreements with Google’s users, will use search data for unintended purposes – commercial solicitation, sale to third parties, or other things.”