The DMA should not undercut security & privacy for Europeans

Source: Google Date: 2026-07-16 URL: https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/around-the-globe/google-europe/the-dma-should-not-undercut-security-privacy-for-europeans/

Summary

Google’s President of Global Affairs, Kent Walker, argues that recent EU Digital Markets Act enforcement rulings undermine privacy and security protections for European users, despite Google having proposed alternatives. Specific concerns raised: forcing Android to grant external apps sensitive device permissions without the vetting safeguards manufacturers currently apply, exposing users’ private searches to unfamiliar third-party companies without adequate anonymization or consent, and broader risks to business trade secrets and national security. Google calls for a “flexible, evidence-based process” to adjust DMA measures rather than rigid enforcement.

Implications

• Not a capability or model signal — this is a regulatory/policy dispute, relevant background for the AI-bubble/economics and platform-power threads rather than the capability clocks: it’s Google defending its walled-garden defaults (Android permissions, Search) against EU-mandated interoperability, framed in security/privacy language.
• Pattern to watch: platform vendors (Google here, similar arguments made elsewhere by Apple/Microsoft) increasingly frame antitrust-driven interoperability mandates as security risks — worth tracking whether this framing recurs as AI-specific DMA-style regulation (e.g., EU AI Act enforcement) develops, since the same rhetorical move could apply to demands for model/agent interoperability.
• Low direct relevance to local-first inference or open-weight tracking; logged primarily for the regulatory-environment thread.