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Many years ago, I had signed up for a Google Account when I lived in the UK. I have since moved to Germany, and changed my address, country for Google Play and contact telephone number all to Germany (and currently there is no payment information on file, but previously it was a German credit card linked to a German address)

However, it seems that Google still considers me to be a UK customer, as I received an email informing me that the data centre responsible for my account will be moved to the United States. The pertinent excerpts from Google's email are:

The changes will take effect on March 31, 2020, and they won’t impact the way you use Google services. And, because the United Kingdom (UK) is leaving the European Union (EU), Google LLC will now be the service provider and the data controller responsible for your information and for complying with applicable privacy laws for UK consumer users.

and

Because the UK is leaving the EU, we’ve updated our Terms so that a United States based company, Google LLC, is now your service provider instead of Google Ireland Limited. Google LLC will also become the data controller responsible for your information and complying with applicable privacy laws.

However, as a customer residing in Germany, I believe my data should continue to be hosted in Ireland and be governed by European laws. I do not want processing of my data to be subject to US or UK laws. Short of deleting my account, is there any option to change the 'true' country account. Account deletion is highly undesirable, as (1) it would means dropping my current GoogleID, which I like for its simplicity, (2) require transferring over a large number of documents in Google Drive, several of them under active collaborative editing, and some other reasons.

I spent some time trawling through the Google Support pages, but all country changes anyone ever seems to talk about there is for Google Play, which I have already changed many years ago to the correct country.

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If not already done so, have you tried changing your home location on Google Maps? A lot of Google services use this setting for determining a user's current physical location.

Go to Google Maps, click on the hamburger and select Your Places, then select Labeled.
This then has an option to set a Home and Work location.

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    Thanks for the suggestion. It's a good idea but did not fix my problem. Actually, I have since figured out that when I navigate to Terms and Conditions from inside my account then I am shown the T&Cs for Germany, which flat out contradict the email I have been sent (and yes, I have checked that there is really only one account). So I have come across an inconsistency, essentially a bug. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way to contact Google to sort this out.
    – frederik
    Feb 25, 2020 at 22:34
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    If it's a bug, which it would appear to be (as you have mentioned) you may want to bring it up on Google's own Google Accounts Help Community. It may help get some eyes on the issue and lead to it getting fixed. You can find the community here support.google.com/accounts/threads?hl=en
    – Bronwyn V
    Feb 25, 2020 at 22:38
  • After not receiving an answer here for a day, and few views, I have already tried that, but so far no reaction. Still maybe it will be picked up. Anyway, thanks for being helpful
    – frederik
    Feb 25, 2020 at 22:56

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