How the Netherlands is taming Big Tech

In 2021, privacy consultants working for two Dutch universities issued a critical report card on Google's education apps, a set of classroom tools like Google Docs that are used by more than 170 million students and educators worldwide.

The audit warned that Google's tools for schools lacked a number of privacy protections - like narrow limits on how the company could use students' and teachers' personal data - that were required by European law. Although the company addressed some of the concerns, the report said, Google declined to comply with Dutch requests to reduce a number of "high risks" cited in the audit.

It took a threat from the Dutch Data Protection Authority, the nation's privacy regulator, to help break the deadlock: Dutch schools would soon have to stop using Google's education tools, the government agency said, if the products continued to pose those...