Google has launched Bard, an artificial intelligence-driven chatbot, in the European Union after resolving issues that worried the bloc’s chief data protection watchdog, Politico writes.
The US tech giant postponed the launch of the new chatbot in Europe in June. Built as a competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the Irish Data Protection Commission informed that the company had previously failed to provide sufficient information on how the tool complies with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
A spokesman for the Irish regulator, Graham Doyle, told Politico:
“Google has made a number of changes in advance of launch, in particular increased transparency and changes to controls for users.”
Google senior product manager Jack Krawczyk told the media that the company has added new features to Bard that expand the control and choices available to users. Users will know how their data is used, opt out of some data transfers, and control which conversations with Bard Google keep or delete.
Changed the user interface to add a “privacy center” and will have contextual information.
Krawczyk noted that
the talks with data regulators in Europe had been very fruitful and added that he hoped for further dialogue.
Doyle said the regulator would continue to work with Google after the tool was launched, and Google had agreed to submit a report after three months.
Bard’s main competitor, ChatGPT, was temporarily banned in Italy in March over concerns that it breached data protection standards. The OpenAI chatbot is also under investigation in Spain and Germany.
Google’s decision in June is one example of US tech companies holding back from introducing new products in the bloc’s countries. Facebook’s parent company launched Threads, a Twitter-like microblogging platform, in early July. Threads is available in over a hundred countries, but not in the EU due to regulatory confusion.
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