By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Alphabet’s Google faced a call on Wednesday for further investigation into its compliance with key European Union rules aimed at reining in Big Tech.

Privacy-focused internet search engine DuckDuckGo, which research company Statista said had a global market share of 0.54% in January this year, has called on the European Commission to open three additional investigations.

Under the EU’s Digital Markets Act, adopted in 2022, Google and six other tech companies are required to make it easier for users to switch to rival services and are barred from favoring their products on their own platforms, among other obligations.

“The DMA has not yet reached its full potential, the search market in the EU has seen little movement, and we believe the only way to force Google into compliance is to launch formal investigations,” said Kamyl Bazbaz, DuckDuckGo’s senior vice president of public affairs. , he wrote in a blog.

The world’s most popular internet search engine is currently the target of two DMA investigations into the rules of its app store Google Play and whether it discriminates against third-party services in Google search results.

Google said it had worked with the industry, experts and the Commission and made significant changes to its products to comply with the DMA.

“This includes giving consumers and businesses more choice in the services they use. When consumers use our services, they expect their data to be protected. We will not compromise that trust to give competitors greater access to sensitive data.” said a Google spokesperson.

The Commission declined to comment on DuckDuckgo’s allegations, saying it is fully committed to ensuring the implementation and enforcement of the DMA.

Bazbaz said an investigation should target Google’s proposal to license anonymised search data on European users to rivals, which he said likely excluded 99% of search queries, making them effectively useless to rivals.

“Google is trying to evade its legal obligation in the name of privacy, which is ironic coming from the internet’s biggest follower,” Bazbaz said.

He said Google should also be investigated for allegedly failing to comply with its DMA obligations, which allow users to easily switch to rival search engines.

If companies are found to be in breach of the DMA, it could cost them up to 10% of their global annual turnover.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Jan Harvey, Alexander Smith, Alexandra Hudson)