"The company must give users enough choice about how their data is handled," Anti-Cartel Office President Andreas Mundt said in a statement.
If it is for the moment only a "warning", not binding, coercive measures could be taken against Google "during the year", if nothing changes, according to the Office.
Concretely, the regulator accuses Google of "accumulating a large amount of data from its various services", such as "Google Search, YouTube, Google Play, Google Maps".
These operations allow it to create "very detailed profiles" of its users, which it can then sell to advertisers.
However, users "do not have sufficient choice to decide whether they agree with this vast inter-service processing of their data", according to the Office.
The choices currently offered are indeed "too little transparent and global".
For the competition policeman, users must be able to limit the processing of their data "to a single service", or "depending on its purpose".
It must also not be "easier" for users to give their consent to the "inter-service" processing of their data than to refuse.
Which is currently the case, according to the Office.
The chairman of the German Anti-Cartel Office, Andreas Mundt, at a press conference in Bonn, February 7, 2019 © Rolf Vennenbernd / dpa/AFP/Archives
This "warning" is part of a procedure opened by the German anti-trust against Google at the beginning of last year, in application of a new law which came into force in 2021. This allows in particular to take immediate measures to prevent certain anti-competitive practices by companies in a situation of market domination, which is the case of Google, according to the competition policeman.
Under this text, investigations had been launched against Facebook, Amazon and Google.
They are part of a context of offensive against the American digital giants in recent years in several European countries and on the part of the EU authorities who are calling on these companies to strengthen their regulation.
© 2023 AFP