Italian competition authority forces Google to improve Google Takeout
Overall, the Authority found the commitments proposed by Google to be adequate to address the competition concerns. The group, in fact, presented a package of three commitments, two of which envisage supplementary solutions to Takeout - the service Google makes available to end users for backing up their data - to facilitate the export of data to third-party operators. The third commitment offers the possibility to start testing, prior to its official release, a new solution - currently under development - that will allow direct data portability from service to service, for third-party operators authorised by end users who so request, in relation to data provided by the users themselves or generated through their activity on Google's online search engine and YouTube platform.
The Italian competition authority has effectively forced Google to improve its Google Takeout tool, making it easier for users to not only take out their data, but also to migrate it to other services without having to manually export and import. If, in the near future, wherever you may live, you discover it's become easier to move away from Google services, tank this case (and many others).
This case is based on the GDPR, the Europan Union privacy law corporatists (and Facebook advocates) want you to equate to cookie popups, to scare you into thinking privacy laws - any laws, really - that target big companies are scary, ineffective, and out to hurt you. However, almost all of the cookie popups you see today are universally not in compliance with the GDPR, and are not mandated by the GDPR at all. The best way for a website or company to avoid cookie popups (even compliant ones), is to... Not share user data with third parties.
Whenever you see a cookie popup (even a compliant one) don't blame the EU or the GDPR - blame the website or company for shipping your data off to some ad provider or analytics service. Stop and think about why your data is being shared with third parties. And yes, that includes us, this website, OSNews.