Google has called this an ‘unwarranted intervention’ that could ‘undermine’ privacy and security for users.
The European Union (EU) has urged Google to implement new measures to open its OS for competitor AI services, a move which has been labelled “unwarranted intervention”.
The EU’s much debated Digital Markets Act (DMA) has been looking to curb the power of big tech companies and improve the competitiveness of the tech landscape.
The European Commission (EC), said: “The proposed measures aim to ensure that competing AI services can effectively interact with applications on users’ Android devices and execute tasks accordingly, such as sending an email using the user’s preferred email app, ordering food or sharing a photo with friends.”
The EC confirmed in a statement that Google might be obligated to provide critical datasets to third-party search engines. This includes ranking, query, click and viewing data for “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms”.
This covers the scope of the search data Google must share, as well as the means and frequency, the eligibility of data beneficiaries (including AI chatbots with search functionalities) as well as the parameters for setting fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory prices for search data; and processes governing beneficiaries’ access to search data.
“Search engines must be able to innovate and keep pace with evolving user needs,” argued the EU’s Henna Virkkunen, executive vice president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy.
“Our work to create opportunities in this sector continues – and comes at a crucial moment of growing interconnection with AI services. With this public consultation, we want to hear from the market on the most effective ways for Google to share search data with competing online search engine providers, to continue our push for innovation and fair competitiveness.
A public consultation has been opened into the proposed measures to ensure they are effective, and interested parties have until 13 May 2026 to submit their views.
What this means
AI search is a fast growing and highly competitive market, and with SEO’s dominance seemingly wavering, the opportunity for smaller organisations to break into the space.
Clare Kelly, senior competition counsel at Google, told Affiliate Leaders: “Android’s open ecosystem enables AI assistants to thrive, as device makers have full autonomy to integrate and customise the AI experiences their users want.
“This unwarranted intervention would strip away that autonomy, mandate access to sensitive hardware and device permissions; unnecessarily driving up costs while undermining critical privacy and security protections for European users.”
This proposal looks to help small and medium search providers to compete more effectively with Google, which dominates the global search market – so much so that it has faced regulatory challenges alleging it has a search monopoly, and has been urged to take proportional action to improve competition.
By having access to more detailed search metrics, smaller platforms could improve their algorithms, refine relevance, and deliver a more user-friendly experience.
Enhanced transparency and operational efficiency could also help to establish a more consistent pricing model for search data, which could in turn help transform search for small platforms.
