EU pushes Google to open up Android and search data amid AI market crackdown

The European Commission initiates expedited proceedings to force Google to improve interoperability and data access on Android and search platforms, aiming to level the playing field in the evolving AI industry and enforce the Digital Markets Act.

The European Commission has opened specification proceedings aimed at forcing Google to make its Android platform and search data more accessible to rival artificial intelligence assistants and search providers, a move intended to enforce the bloc’s Digital Markets Act and preserve competition in the fast-evolving AI market. According to the report by the Associated Press, the action seeks to ensure third parties can use features now primarily available to Google’s own Gemini services.

Brussels told Google it must provide free and effective interoperability for third-party developers with the hardware and software features it controls on Android, and it must offer competing search engines access to anonymised query, ranking, click and view data on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. The Commission said the specification proceedings are designed to clarify how Google should meet those obligations.

The proceedings are not yet a formal investigation but will run on an accelerated timetable: preliminary findings are expected within three months and the process must conclude within six months, after which the Commission could impose binding remedies if it deems them necessary. Industry observers say the timeline is intended to push Google to reconfigure technical arrangements rather than await protracted enforcement action.

Google pushed back, warning the rules risk harming user protections and innovation. Clare Kelly, senior competition counsel at Google, said in a statement the company is concerned that further rules “often driven by competitor grievances rather than the interest of consumers, will compromise user privacy, security, and innovation.” The warning reflects persistent tension between regulator efforts to open digital markets and platform claims about safety and data protection.

Smaller search firms have urged stricter scrutiny, arguing Google’s initial compliance proposals leave out the long-tail queries and granular click-and-query signals that are essential for rivals to build competitive search products. DuckDuckGo and other challengers have accused Google’s dataset designs of being too heavily anonymised to be useful, a point that regulators will assess as part of the specification work.

The Commission’s action comes amid a broader EU campaign to curb perceived preferential treatment of in-house services across Google’s ecosystem, including past probes into how the company displays news and steers users within the Play Store. Google has already rolled out a series of changes in Europe to give users more control over data linking across services and to alter ad-consent flows as it adapts to the DMA’s requirements.

If the Commission moves from specification proceedings to a formal finding of non-compliance, Google could face significant sanctions under the DMA, including fines calibrated to global turnover. The measure further underscores how competition policy in the EU is extending into the architecture of AI and mobile platforms, with regulators signalling they will use the DMA’s tools to shape the technical interfaces that determine market access.

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Source: Noah Wire Services