Natalia Drozdiak

Big tech firms could be banned from preferencing their own services in search rankings or exclusively pre-installing their own applications on devices, under new regulations planned by the European Union.

The United States and the European Union are aligning rules to help crime-fighters access suspects’ emails, text messages, photos and other data, despite simmering trans-Atlantic tensions.

Uber  suffered a major defeat in its effort to overturn strict rules and licensing requirements in Europe, after the bloc’s highest court ruled the ride-hailing company should be regulated as a transportation service, rather than a digital service. The judgment by the European Court of Justice won’t force Uber to curtail most of its services in Europe, but the decision is a blow to the company’s efforts to use courts to lighten its regulatory load—and forces it to deal more directly with national and local governments that set rules governing car and transport services in Europe.

A group of Google adversaries announced a new formal complaint to the European Union’s antitrust watchdog over the Alphabet unit’s behavior with its Android mobile-operating service. The Open Internet Project, whose members include German publishing giants Axel Springer SE and Hubert Burda Media, as well as a handful of French internet companies, said it had filed a new complaint to the EU against Google because the technology giant had “imposed contractual restraints on manufacturers of Android smartphones and tablets, which make it virtually impossible for them to produce and market Google-free devices.”

The European Commission, the bloc’s antitrust watchdog, last April accused Google of using its Android mobile-operating system, which runs more than 80% of the world’s smartphones, to strong-arm phone makers and telecom companies into favoring Google’s search engine and browser on their devices. The latest complaint increases pressure on Google, as well as the regulator, to complete the various investigations into the company. In addition, the EU has formally accused Google of skewing its online search results to favor its comparison-shopping service and alleged the company violates the bloc’s rules by restricting how websites offering Google’s search function can show advertisements from other companies.

Software giant Oracle said it briefed European regulators late in 2016 on recent changes to Google’s privacy policies in hopes of compounding its rival’s already complicated regulatory challenges. In June, Google asked users to accept a new privacy policy that allowed it to combine their browsing and search data, giving the company more robust profiles of its users. Oracle said it told antitrust regulators that the policy change will make it harder for other companies to compete by enabling Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., to even more accurately target ads to users. Privacy advocates have also complained to US regulators. “‘Super profiles’ now a reality,” reads a headline on one slide of a presentation that Oracle provided to regulators. “Policy change gives Google, exclusive, unprecedented insight into users’ lives.” An EU official confirmed regulators had been briefed by Oracle on the privacy-policychange and said they were taking the allegations “seriously.”

The European Union’s competition regulator is intent on forcing changes to Google’s business practices and levying significant fines for breaching the bloc’s antitrust rules.

For more than five years, the European Commission has been inspecting Google’s business operations on concerns the Silicon Valley company is abusing its dominance and shutting out rivals in various markets. The investigations have resulted in formal charges in several areas of Google’s practices, including over the company’s conduct with its comparison shopping service and its Android mobile operating system. The commission intends to establish that Google and Alphabet have “infringed” on EU antitrust rules, and it will seek to end these actions and fine the companies for the alleged infringements.