Blocking tech giants' AI tools - no downside for EU consumers, claims civil society

In recent weeks, both Meta and Google executives said that EU regulation has made it difficult to launch their AI tools on the European market. Last year, TikTok and X faced the same problem, due to requirements under the Digital Services Act (DSA), AI Act and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, civil society groups tell Euronews that consumers in Europe are not missing out, and that companies need to be held accountable.

Google’s AI Overviews is the latest tool to be rolled out in just eight of the 27 EU member states, but it remains unclear whether it will launch in the remaining 19 EU countries. An executive for the tech giant said that the EU is starting to miss out on innovation and users might not see certain new products due to the regulatory burden. 

AI Overviews — which will appear in Google Search results when its systems determine that generative responses may be helpful to users — was rolled out in the EU nine months after its launch in the US and other jurisdictions. 

Similarly, Meta’s AI chat function MetaAI only made it to the EU in April, while it was introduced in the US back in September 2023, followed by India in June 2024 and in the UK in October. 

Meta’s planned launch in Europe “took longer than expected” due to questioning from the Irish regulator on the company's use of personal data of adult Facebook and Instagram users for training purposes. The company said it “continues to navigate its complex regulatory system - but we’re glad we’re finally here”. 

Are users really missing out? Not according to Sébastien Pant, deputy head of communications at the European consumer organisation BEUC. He told Euronews that consumers in the EU expect the AI tools they use to be safe and respectful of their rights.

“If certain companies cannot guarantee that their AI products respect the law, then consumers are not missing out; these are products that are simply not safe to be released on the EU market yet,” Pant said.

“It is not for legislation to bend to new features rolled out by tech companies. It is instead for companies to make sure that new features, products or technologies comply with existing laws before they hit the EU market,” he added.

A survey carried out last year by Euroconsumers, an organisation representing people in Belgium, Spain, Portugal and Italy, shows that one in three respondents were very concerned about the large development of AI. 

“To make sure European consumers are not deprived from AI innovation and our framework does not become a barrier but an enabler, we need our authorities and policy makers also to provide clear guidance on this, to AI companies big and small,” Euroconsumers said in a statement. 

Investigations

It’s not only US tech that is blocked in the EU: Chinese AI app Deepseek was banned in several EU countries for citizens' personal data to train its models, which is prohibited under the GDPR. 

X’s Grok — which competes with OpenAI’s GPT and Google’s Gemini — faced a similar fate when the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) filed court proceedings against the social media platform for violating privacy rights. The platform quietly changed its data settings to automatically opt in to training its new AI model.

The Elon Musk owned company then vowed to stop the data processing, after which it became available in the EU. 

Data Protection Lawyer Kleanthi Sardeli, working for privacy group NOYB, said the emerging AI tools have been on their radar for a while. She said that the EU’s highest court in Luxembourg has been clear in its judgments: personal data should not be processed for personalised advertising.

“This is because the user is not expecting their personal data to be used for AI training when interacting with the Facebook application. However, that is exactly what is happening with these tools, putting the protection of the users' personal data on the back-burner,” Sardeli said.

“The right to data protection is a fundamental human right and it should be taken into account when designing and deploying AI tools,” she added.

The European Commission has opened a number of investigations under the DSA for platforms compliance with the rules, none of these probes have been wrapped up yet.

Meanwhile, US tech companies are siding with the US administration of President Donald Trump, claiming that EU rules are an attack on US companies.

US Vice President JD Vance called EU regulation “excessive” while he was attending the AI Action Summit in Paris in February.