EU Orders Google to Open Android and Share Search Data With Rivals

The European Commission ordered Google on July 16 to open eleven Android features to rival AI assistants and share anonymised Search data with competing search engines and chatbots, under two binding rulings issued through the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Rival assistants gain Android’s deepest hooks, the ones now reserved for Gemini, from July 2027. Search rivals and AI chatbots get access to Google’s own ranking, click and query data six months earlier, from January.

Brussels frames both orders as insurance against a monopoly still forming. But independent analysis of the case built into the Commission’s own files shows a rival chatbot already leads the market the rulings are meant to keep open, and that same rival is now first in line for Google’s data too.

Eleven Android Features, One Pricing Formula

Today, an EU user who downloads a rival AI app on an Android phone gets an app. A user who opens Gemini gets an operating system feature: it can be woken by voice from a locked screen, triggered by holding the power button, read whatever is on screen and act inside other apps. Under the new order, competitors get the same standing.

The Commission’s decision, issued under Article 6(7) of the DMA, identifies eleven specific feature points spread across four categories. Google must build them into the next major Android release, due in July 2027.

• Activation – rival assistants must detect their own custom wake words through the phone’s audio hardware, including with the screen off, and respond to hardware button presses on the same terms as Gemini’s “Hey Google.”
• Context and screen access – competing assistants must be able to read on-screen content and app context the way Gemini already does.
• Cross-app control – rivals must be able to carry out multi-step tasks inside other apps, such as booking a taxi, drafting a suggested reply in a messaging app or answering a question about a place a user recently visited.
• On-device compute – the most contested piece, covering access to on-device AI hardware, including the chips and memory Google currently reserves for its own models.

Google must let users grant this access, and the measures incorporate safeguards to protect user privacy, device integrity and security. Google can still screen individual developers for cybersecurity or data protection risks before switching on access, but the Commission says it cannot apply conditions to rivals that it does not apply to Gemini.

OpenAI, Anthropic and the Rivals Now in Line

The second order tackles a different asset: the query, click and ranking data behind a search engine that still handles close to 95% of all EU searches, by widely cited industry estimates. That scale is exactly what makes the dataset hard for anyone else to replicate.

From January 2027, Google must share anonymised versions of that data with eligible outside search providers, and, notably, with AI chatbots that offer their own search functions. Reporting around the decision has named OpenAI specifically as one of the intended recipients, alongside other AI chatbot providers offering search features. The data must be priced under a formula the Commission has set, and Google can still vet applicants for security and privacy risks before handing anything over.

The eligible companies are not scrappy startups short on resources. OpenAI’s own data processing terms, updated for January 2026, already carve out anonymised data with enhanced audit rights, the kind of provision this new EU rule will now test at a scale no single company has faced before. The decision sits inside a wider European push to set the terms on which AI systems are built, trained and measured, a fight over standards and sovereignty that extends well beyond one search engine and reaches into how AI systems are measured and governed globally.

Does This Order Punish Google?

No. Both decisions are legally binding technical instructions, not a verdict. They do not decide whether Google broke the DMA, and neither carries a fine. That question, over an entirely different set of complaints about Google favouring its own shopping, travel and hotel listings in Search, belongs to a separate Commission process expected to conclude within days.

The specification decisions are also open to challenge. The Commission has said they fully respect Google’s rights of defence and remain subject to independent judicial review, meaning Google can still contest them in the EU courts even as the clock on compliance keeps running.

Gemini Trails ChatGPT by the Numbers That Matter

Here is the tension at the centre of both orders. The Commission has said its goal is to stop Gemini from tipping the Android and AI assistant market before real alternatives get a foothold, a forward-looking worry rather than a response to an existing monopoly. But the market the rule is trying to protect does not look like Google is winning it.

Dirk Auer, director of competition policy at the International Center for Law and Economics (ICLE), a research group that has pushed back on the Commission’s approach, put it plainly in a statement issued the same day as the ruling.

“Google remains a challenger in AI assistants,” ICLE said in a statement responding to the decision, pointing to ChatGPT’s roughly 70% share of EU chatbot use and Anthropic’s growth outpacing every other rival over the past year.

• ~70% – ChatGPT’s share of EU AI chatbot usage, according to ICLE’s analysis published the day the decision landed.
• 813 million vs. 369 million – Gemini’s monthly desktop sessions versus mobile sessions in October 2025, a ratio running more than two to one in desktop’s favour, per ICLE’s review of the Commission’s own case file.
• ~95% – Google’s estimated share of the EU general search market, the asset the second decision is designed to prise open.
• Fastest-growing rival – Anthropic’s growth rate among EU AI assistant users over the past year, ahead of every other competitor, per ICLE.

“There is a difference between letting users choose another default assistant and forcing Google to give every rival the deep system access it developed for Gemini,” Auer said. “The decision strips the trailing player of its main differentiator and favours firms that never needed one. That is a strange way to promote competition.”

That framing cuts against Brussels’ own account, but it does not erase it either. Gemini’s fastest growth has come on desktop, and the Commission’s worry is squarely about Android, the device layer where roughly 60% of EU users already sit inside Google’s operating system. A forward-looking rule can be right about a future risk even if today’s usage numbers look lopsided.

A Privacy Hole Google’s Own Scientist Flagged

The anonymisation problem at the heart of the search-data rule is not just a Google talking point. Google’s own differential-privacy researcher, Sergei Vassilvitskii, has told the Commission that an earlier version of its anonymisation method could reportedly be reversed in a matter of hours, a finding that landed months before this week’s final decision and pushed officials toward the multi-layered approach ultimately adopted.

The Commission says the method it settled on was built with internal and external privacy experts and lines up with draft joint guidance from the Commission and the European Data Protection Board. It has also left room to tighten the rules later, saying it may revise the anonymisation measures based on future market developments and independent evaluation.

The AI companies best placed to receive that data, OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity and others, have a commercial interest in getting it on the loosest terms possible. None of them has taken a public position on the re-identification risk Google’s own scientist raised, leaving the loudest voice on the privacy question the one company accused of dragging its feet on competition.

Eleven Billion Euros of Precedent, With More on the Way

The Fines That Came Before

Google is a familiar defendant in Brussels. The Commission designated Google Search, Android and three other services as gatekeepers on 6 September 2023, and DMA obligations have applied to the company since March 7, 2024. Gatekeeper status itself is not a small-company problem; it requires clearing thresholds including an annual turnover of at least 7.5 billion euros and a matching market capitalisation.

Google’s accumulated EU competition penalties already exceed 11 billion euros. Angela Mills Wade, executive director of the European Publishers Council, argued after the September 2025 adtech fine that a fine alone would not fix the underlying conduct, calling instead for remedies that change Google’s behaviour at a structural level, which is precisely the argument the Commission is now making for this week’s Android and Search orders.

The Bill Brussels Hasn’t Sent Yet

A separate penalty, unrelated to this week’s specification decisions, is still pending. Sources cited by the Financial Times reported the Commission was preparing to announce a fine in the hundreds of millions of euros against Google this week, covering Search self-preferencing and Play Store anti-steering conduct dating back years. Reports have pegged the likely range as high as 700 million to 999 million euros, which would make it the largest fine issued specifically under the DMA, though still a fraction of Google’s older, larger antitrust penalties.

The delay itself became a story. More than 30 civil society groups led by Open Markets Institute Europe wrote to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in May accusing her of personally holding back a decision that had reportedly been ready since March. Max von Thun of Open Markets Institute Europe, a Brussels-based advocacy group, called the delay “a serious blow to Europe’s digital sovereignty.”

Apple Already Walked This Road, Just Not Forward

Google is not the only gatekeeper facing this exact choice. Apple’s own securities filings confirm the Commission opened a formal noncompliance investigation under Article 5(4) against its App Store steering rules back in March 2024, a case that ended in a 500 million euro fine, the DMA’s first, in April 2025.

Faced with its own interoperability demands over Siri, Apple chose a different path than opening up. In June, Apple told regulators it would withhold new Siri AI features from the European Union entirely rather than reach an agreement on the terms of access. Apple already leans on Google’s own Gemini model to power parts of Apple Intelligence, a dependency that shadowed its own run past Nvidia atop the world’s most valuable company rankings earlier this year.

ICLE’s Auer pointed to that precedent directly: “Apple faced a similar demand and kept Siri AI off European iPhones entirely. If Brussels makes deep AI integration untenable, Google may delay or diminish Gemini in Europe. Users would get less, not more.”

Google has not said whether it will follow Apple’s example or build out Gemini access as ordered. Its Android deadline lands in July 2027.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why Did Brussels Issue Two Separate Decisions Instead of One?

Because they rest on two different DMA obligations. The Commission opened both specification proceedings on the same day, January 27, 2026, one under Article 6(7) covering Android interoperability and one under Article 6(11) covering search data sharing, and closed both on July 16, 2026, six months later.

Can Google Still Be Fined for Ignoring These Specific Orders?

Yes, eventually. If Google fails to comply with this week’s Android or Search data requirements, the Commission could later open a separate non-compliance case carrying fines of up to 10% of Alphabet’s global annual turnover. That is distinct from the imminent fine tied to older Search and Play Store conduct.

What Happens if Google Appeals to the EU Courts?

An appeal would not pause compliance. A General Court sequencing rule issued July 8, 2026, and established through Apple’s own gatekeeper cases, confirmed that companies must keep complying with DMA obligations while any appeal plays out, a contrast with Google’s 2017 Shopping fine, which took eight years of litigation to reach a final ruling in 2024.

Do These Rules Apply in Britain Too?

Not automatically. The United Kingdom runs a separate digital markets regime through its Competition and Markets Authority, which evaluates cases individually rather than through a prescribed list of features, so UK developers may see a different, and possibly slower, path to the same kind of access.

How Big Could Google’s Separate, Older Fine Turn Out to Be?

Estimates place it in the high hundreds of millions of euros, with some reporting suggesting a figure between roughly 700 million and 999 million euros. That would make it the largest penalty issued under the DMA specifically, even though it remains far smaller than the multibillion euro fines Google has already paid under the EU’s older competition rules.