
Google beyond the basic requirement
When asked about the rationale behind the introduction of the new service, a Google spokesperson said that the hyperscaler was going “above and beyond what the data act requires by eliminating the cost of in-parallel processing fees for customers in the EU and UK.”
In contrast, Microsoft is keeping the fees “at cost”. Moreover, a 2024 report from the UK’s competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), showed that Microsoft, at that time, found the implementation of Article 34 challenging and complex, citing that it was difficult to identify EU customers.
IBM, on the other hand, communicated to the watchdog that it would determine EU customers based on the location of their headquarters to comply with the statute.
Google, according to the report, was in favor of compliance and said that it was incentivised to encourage multicloud.
AWS’s comments were redacted from the report, but the hyperscaler confirmed in an email response to NetworkWorld that it was offering “reduced” fees for EU customers.
It further claimed that most, nearly 90%, of its enterprise customers already pay nothing for data transfer as the hyperscaler provides 100 gigabytes per month for free, to use for any purpose.