EU Orders Google to Open Android & Search Data to AI Rivals

The European Union is increasing the scrutiny of Google that obligates the company to provide the rival artificial intelligence firms and search engines with fair access to its core search data and Android operating system. 

EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said.

Today’s proceedings under the Digital Markets Act will provide guidance to Google to ensure that third-party online search engines and AI providers enjoy the same access to search data and Android operating system as Google’s own services, like Google Search or Gemini.

The enforcement strategies of openness by Google in the EU

In the first of the processes, the Commission will advise Google how to provide third-party providers of AI the opportunity to access Android with the same functional benefits that Google enjoys in using its own Assistant and Gemini AI products. 

As a result, AI chatbots and search agents produced by startup companies and rivals need to work efficiently on Android gadgets and not to be disadvantaged technologically.

The second proceeding focuses on Google Search statistics. The regulators will specify the terms under which rival search engines can access rankings, queries, click and view data on Google Search. This is an important lifeline to smaller search operators, who need and want to train and refine their own AI models with the help of real user behavior data.

Google’s measured reaction

Google recognizes that Android is a free product by its very nature and that it is already selling some search information to rivals via the DMA.

Clare Kelly, Google’s Senior Competition Counsel, said in a statement.

Android is open by design, and we’re already licensing Search data to competitors under the DMA.

The fears of the company are associated with the possible loss of security boundaries and the hindrance of the fast innovations that could be produced because of the obligatory data sharing and the integration of the systems on a deep level.

The implications

The EU is doing the same to Google, as it had done to Apple, namely the use of a gatekeeper framework. In requiring Google to be fair to competitors on Android and in search, Brussels aims at preventing a walled garden where only Google AI, like Gemini, will have special privileges of data and device integration. 

Recent figures also show that Google is the clear winner, with more than 90% of the web search engine market share. That’s 9x more than all other search engines combined. Google’s dominance stems largely from its unparalleled ability to match search queries with relevant search results.

Microsoft Bing is its closest competitor, accounting for only about 3.7% of the market. Not nearly enough to threaten Google’s monopoly, but enough to rank as the world’s second most popular search engine.

The DMA thus gives the competitors the option of coming up with AI-powered search tools that can compete with each other on real scale.

Future developments

The EU is planning to close these proceedings in the next six months thus giving Google a road map on compliance. In case the ultimate guidelines happen to be tough, they might completely alter the operations of AI search assistants in Europe, which would enable comparatively easy challenges to Google dominance by the startups and middle-sized businesses, implementing their own AI-based search tools.