Google has built an entire ecosystem of services that speak and interact with one another. This is how they manage to give you a personalized experience on your Google account; whether you're using YouTube, Chrome, or Maps. However, with the Digital Markets Act in the EU taking effect in March, you'll have the choice to unlink some or all of a selected group of Google services.
The Choice of Which Google Services Are Linked
Alphabet, Google's parent company, is a behemoth in the tech world and no longer simply the search engine many of us grew up with. While the search aspect of their business is still going strong, they also have Maps, YouTube, YouTube Music, Chrome, Google Play, and so on, to rely on.
Things are going to change because of Google's sheer size though. A new law in the EU called the Digital Markets Act (DMA) was made to promote fairness in the digital marketplace. Under the DMA, the influence of Google's platform meets the criteria for being labeled a “gatekeeper”. To comply with the regulations for gatekeepers, Google users in the EU can now choose which of certain Google services they'd like to keep linked to each other.
Keeping them linked means that each of these services can keep sharing data with the others. However, some Google services will always remain linked, meaning that your choice only applies to specific services, which are:
- Ad services
- Google Chrome
- Google Maps
- Google Play
- Google Shopping
- Search
- YouTube
How To Manage Which Google Services Are Linked
If you live in the EU and you want to unlink any of those Google services, you can sort it out through the settings on your Android smartphone. Keep in mind that the settings you change will only take effect after March 6th.
Here's what you need to do to manage your linked Google services:
- Open the Settings on your Android device.
- Find the Google item and tap it.
- Choose “Manage your Google Account”, and then “Data & privacy”.
- Now, select “Manage linked services” in the Linked Google Services section. Note that you are likely only to see this option available if you live in the EU.
- Here, you can finally select the Google services that you want to allow to share data with each other. You can select none, some, or all.
- Once you're satisfied, press Confirm.
Keep in mind that unlinking may prevent you from enjoying certain non-essential features like recommendations and personalized results.
What Is The Digital Markets Act All About?
The DMA is a new law established by the European Union to promote a healthier market for digital products and services. To summarize things, it aims to push massively influential digital platforms into providing their services fairly — allowing consumers to have more choices and smaller digital platforms to have a better chance.
The law relies heavily on defining the influential platforms, called “gatekeepers“, using a set of criteria. Google (or Alphabet to be precise) is one, as well as Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and TikTok-owner ByteDance.
As expected, this law will cause a huge shakeup in how tech giants run their businesses in the EU. For now, the regulations imposed by the DMA will stick to Europe, but it won't be surprising to see other regions take a hint from this move.
