Brussels – The European Commission is tightening the noose on Google. Brussels has adopted two binding decisions under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) to open up the market for artificial intelligence assistants on Android and the search engine market to competition, imposing new rules on the Mountain View giant regarding access to operating system features and the sharing of search data. The measures, as the EU executive emphasises in the press release, aim to ensure that “companies can offer European users a wider and more feature-rich range of options,” both in terms of AI services and online search.
The first measure concerns Android, where, according to the Commission, Gemini’s competing AI assistants “have only restricted access to the operating system’s key features,” while Google’s services have full access. This situation, the European Commission points out, prevents competitors from competing “on a level playing field” and makes their solutions less attractive to the 60 per cent of European users who use Android devices. The new measures will allow users to activate the AI assistant of their choice via voice commands, similar to “Hey Google,” and use it to carry out tasks within apps, from booking a taxi to managing conversations, right through to requesting information about places they have visited. Brussels points out that the measure incorporates “robust safeguards” to protect privacy, security, and the integrity of devices.
The second decision, on the other hand, concerns the online search market, requiring Google to share with other search engines data that has hitherto been available only to the Mountain View giant. According to the Commission, the sharing of this data is “crucial for the development and optimisation of third-party search engines” and will promote “innovative search services, including privacy-focused alternatives.” The text also clarifies that AI-powered chatbots offering search functionality will be able to access the shared data and stipulates that Google must make available, after anonymisation, the same data it uses to improve its own search engine. Brussels emphasises that the anonymisation system was developed “in close collaboration with internal and external privacy experts” and that Google will be able to assess in advance any risks to cybersecurity and data protection.
The decisions also set out a fair pricing formula for shared data and a transparent procedure for accessing it. Google will be required to start sharing search data with eligible operators from January 2027, while users will begin to benefit from the changes to Android from July of the same year.
“Society is undergoing a profound digital transformation. We must ensure this process remains fair and that our citizens have a choice,” said the Executive Vice-President for a Just and Clean Transition, Teresa Ribera. Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen echoed this sentiment, stating that “with the measures adopted today, we aim to support fair competition in the markets for AI assistants for Android devices and search engines.” The Commission’s hope, she added, is to see “alternatives to Google Search and Google’s AI services, such as Gemini, emerge,” so that “users in the European Union can benefit from a wider choice of services.”
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
