Technology
EU Forces Google to Open Its Data and Android to Rival AI — What the DMA Really Demands
The European Commission has issued binding orders requiring Google to open two of its most valuable assets to competitors: anonymised search data and key Android features for rival AI assistants. The orders arrive under the Digital Markets Act, the EU's Big Tech rulebook, and represent the shift from policy warnings into concrete technical obligations.
The two rulings
The first ruling concerns search data. Google collects a detailed record of what billions of users type, which results they click, and how long they view each page. Under the DMA, the Commission has now ordered Google to make that data available to competing search engines on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms — provided the data is anonymised. Search rivals argue that without this data their results are structurally weaker than Google's, simply because they have less information about what users actually want.
The second ruling concerns Android. The Commission has ordered Google to open roughly eleven Android features to third-party AI services so that rival assistants can integrate with the operating system on roughly equal footing to Google's own Gemini. The goal is to prevent the platform owner from using its operating system as a moat around its own AI.
The timeline
The obligations were issued on the back of formal proceedings that began earlier in the year. Compliance deadlines have been set: the Android interoperability measures take effect from January 2025-style provisions, while the search-data sharing regime is due by July 2027. Google has signalled disagreement, warning that broadening data access raises privacy and security risks — a recurring tension in regulator-versus-platform disputes.
Why it matters for AI
Training competitive AI search and assistants has become expensive in data as much as in compute. A company like OpenAI or a European search startup does not merely need a better model; it needs real user behaviour to train relevance and to build a product users actually reach for. By forcing the incumbent to share the behavioural record that fuels its own advantage, the DMA attempts to lower that moat. The long-term test is whether anonymised data is detailed enough to be useful without becoming a privacy loophole.
Knowledge takeaway: Google must share anonymised search data — queries, clicks, rankings, views — with rivals on FRAND terms; eleven Android AI features must be opened to third-party assistants under the DMA; search-data compliance is due by July 2027.