EU forces Google to share search data with rivals and AI chatbots under Digital Markets Act

EU forces Google's hand on search data, angering Google

Includes a to-do list on search data sharing and platform access as DMA enforcement ramps up Brussels has told Google to open up its search data and give rivals equal footing on its own platforms, sketching out how it expects the tech giant to comply with the bloc's competition rulebook. In preliminary findings under the Digital Markets Act, the European Commission outlined proposed measures that would force Google to hand over key search data - including rankings, queries, clicks, and views - to rivals on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms. The aim is straightforward enough: give competing search engines, and even AI chatbots with search features, access to the kind of data they need to build services capable of taking on Google Search, rather than being locked out from the start. "Today's decision sets out the specifications we expect Google to follow to comply with its obligations under the Digital Markets Act. Data is a key input for online search and for developing new services, including AI," said Teresa Ribera, executive vice-President for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition. "Access to this data should not be restricted in ways that could harm competition. In fast-moving markets, small changes can quickly have a big impact. We will not allow practices that risk closing markets or limiting choice." Google, naturally, isn't impressed by the Commission's demands, which it says "far exceeded the DMA's original mandate." "Hundreds of millions of Europeans trust Google with their most sensitive searches -- including private questions about their health, family, and finances -- and the Commission's proposal would force us to hand this data over to third parties, with dangerously ineffective privacy protections," Clare Kelly, senior Competition Counsel at Google, said in a statement to The Register. "We will continue to vigorously defend against this overreach, which far exceeds the DMA's original mandate and jeopardizes people's privacy and security." Google said the investigation appears to be driven "at least in part by OpenAI", which it claims is "seeking to take advantage of the DMA to harvest data from Google in ways not anticipated by the drafters of the DMA." It also calls out the EC's plan to "mandate ineffective anonymization to increase data volume", arguing that this would trade off user privacy to satisfy the "unbounded demands of competitors." For all of Google's complaints, the Commission is already laying out how this would work in practice - who qualifies for access, what data they get, how often it's handed over, and what Google has to do to strip out personal information, along with the terms governing access. The Commission is asking for feedback, with responses due by 1 May, before locking in a binding decision by July 27, 2026. The outcome will decide exactly how much of Google's search data rivals get to see, and on what terms. ®

The EU has told Google what it must do to share search data with rivals

The European Commission today sent Google its preliminary findings under the Digital Markets Act, proposing six specific measures governing how Google must share search ranking, query, click, and view data with competing search engines. AI chatbots with search functionalities are explicitly included as potential data beneficiaries. A public consultation opens tomorrow. The European Commission has sent Google its preliminary findings under the Digital Markets Act, proposing concrete measures to govern how Google must share search data with third-party search engines and, critically, with AI chatbots that carry search functionalities. The findings, published on 16 April 2026, set out six specific areas of obligation and open a public consultation on Friday 17 April to allow third parties, including Google's competitors and their representatives, to comment on the proposed measures before they are finalised. The six areas covered by the Commission's proposed measures are: the eligibility of "data beneficiaries" to receive search data, including the contested question of whether AI chatbots with search functionalities qualify; the scope of the search data Google must share; the means and frequency by which data must be shared; measures to ensure proper anonymisation of personal data; parameters for setting fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory prices for the data; and the governance processes by which beneficiaries access it. The combination of pricing parameters and access governance is particularly significant: Brussels is not merely mandating that data be shared but specifying in some detail how the commercial and technical terms of access should work. The AI chatbot eligibility question is the most commercially consequential element of the package. Google Search holds decades of accumulated user behaviour data, what queries people enter, which results they click, which they skip, how they reformulate searches when they do not find what they want, that its rivals have historically been unable to replicate at scale. Traditional search competitors including Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Ecosia have argued this asymmetry is a structural barrier to meaningful competition. The DMA's Article 6(11) obligation, which these proceedings are designed to specify, requires access on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms, but until now the precise scope of who qualifies has remained undefined. By explicitly including AI chatbots with search functionalities in the proposed measures, the Commission is signalling that it regards conversational AI systems that answer queries directly as competing in the same space as traditional search engines and therefore entitled to the same data access rights. The preliminary findings represent the midpoint of specification proceedings launched on 27 January 2026. The Commission opened those proceedings, a relatively new enforcement mechanism under the DMA designed to define how a gatekeeper must comply with a specific obligation rather than immediately finding it in breach, after determining that Google's existing data-sharing arrangements were insufficient to deliver meaningful competition. The Commission must finalise the proceedings within six months of their January opening, placing the deadline around late July 2026. Google now has the opportunity to respond to the preliminary findings in writing before final measures are adopted. The proceedings do not constitute a finding of non-compliance, but they create the legal architecture for one. If Google fails to satisfy the measures the Commission ultimately adopts, the regulator retains the power to open a formal non-compliance decision, carrying fines of up to 10% of Alphabet's global annual turnover, a figure that given Alphabet's revenues could exceed $35 billion. Google's response to the January launch was sceptical: Clare Kelly, the company's senior competition counsel, said the company was "alcady licensing Search data to competitors under the DMA" and warned that further requirements "offered driven by competitor grievances rather than the interests of consumers" would compromise privacy, security, and innovation. The Commission's counter-position, expressed by EVP Teresa Ribera, is that access to genuinely useful data is necessary to "maximise the potential and the benefits of this profound technological shift by making sure the playing field is open and fair." Today's action is one of several simultaneous DMA enforcement tracks against Google. A parallel set of specification proceedings addresses Google's Android interoperability obligations, requiring that third-party AI service providers receive equally effective access to the same Android hardware and software features that power Gemini. Separate from these specification proceedings, the Commission issued preliminary findings in March 2025 alleging that Google Search unlawfully self-preferences its own vertical services, Google Shopping, Hotels, and Flightsm, a non-compliance track that carries its own fine exposure and is proceeding in parallel.