EDPB's Google Search Data Letter Sparks Debate Over Anonymisation Guidelines

Europe's data protection regulators told the European Commission in May that click data Google must hand to rival search engines was 'highly unique.'

The letter, dated May 5 and signed by Anu Talus, Chair of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), suggested adding noise to it before any transfer. The EDPB's website lists the document among its policy papers with a date of May 5, but its download link sits in a folder labelled September 2026.

Brussels lawyer Peter Craddock argues that the board is holding the Commission to a looser standard than the one it set for everyone else in July. The same regulators published general anonymisation guidelines in July that sound stricter, and appear not to line up with their requests to Google.

The EDPB's letter was sent four days after the consultation closed on May 1, as part of the Commission's proceedings against Alphabet under Article 6(11) of the Digital Markets Act. The board's comments included five framing points and 28 specific comments, including adding noise to click data.

Craddock says that the letter looks only at authorised recipients and does not engage with the guidelines' worry about prohibitions nobody enforces. He argues that the EDPB is 'adding words to Art. 6(11) based on - in my view - a questionable reading of Recital 61.'

Craddock's objections are centered around predictability, as he wrote: 'Data protection, it is hard enough to get right without regulators changing views from month to month.'