- The EU data law obliges companies to offer a transfer of data “at the cost”
- Google Cloud deletes the cost, AWS and Azure always charge
- Google wants to be considered a champion of the opening
Google has deleted data transfer costs for organizations using multicloud approaches within the European Union and the United Kingdom.
The change landed only a few days before the entry into force of the EU data law (September 12, 2025) – an element of legislation designed to facilitate access, share and use data on the sectors and platforms.
Although the law only obliges companies to provide “cost” data transfer options, Google has gone further by allowing it free of charge.
Google is free to transfer data in the EU / United Kingdom
The main director of Google Cloud Global Risk and Compliance, Jeanette Manfra, announced the change in a blog article, emphasizing the company’s commitment to interoperability, openness and multicaloud strategies.
Manfra stressed that Google was the first company to offer digital sovereignty solutions for European governments, and the first to give up exit costs for customers leaving Google Cloud.
All this from a company that follows behind AWS (32%) and Microsoft Azure (23%) in terms of market share in the first quarter of 2025 (10%for Google Cloud).
The post also dates back to the original promise of the cloud – an ecosystem “open, elastic and exempt from artificial locking”.
In the future, Google Cloud customers will have to oppose the essential data transfer service to benefit from zero costs. Note that this is designed to operate only with “parallel” workloads – the same organization, spread over two or more cloud suppliers.
Although Google’s response to the EU data law is late compared to hypersCaling rivals, it is certainly the most favorable approach. Microsoft began to charge costs in the EU in August, and AWS allows EU customers to request reduced rates in certain use cases.
As such, Google considered its response as a wider thrust to challenge market locking – a subject of burning discussion between European regulators.
