Google appeals EU orders requiring it to open key Android AI features to rival assistants and share anonymized Search data with competing search services, escalating a Digital Markets Act dispute into the European Union’s General Court.

 

The two challenges target separate obligations:

  • Equal access to 11 Android features used by Gemini
  • Search-data sharing with eligible rivals, including AI chatbots
  • Commission safeguards that Google says remain insufficient

 

Background Reading

 

Google Appeals EU Orders Under the Digital Markets Act

Google filed the challenges on September 28 at the Luxembourg-based General Court, according to Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. The cases seek review of two binding specification decisions that the European Commission adopted on July 16 under the Digital Markets Act.

 

The first decision covers Android interoperability. It requires Google to give competing AI services access to operating-system capabilities that Gemini can use, preventing the company from reserving important device functions for its own assistant.

 

The second covers data collected through Google Search. Eligible search providers, including AI chatbots with search functions, are meant to receive anonymized ranking, query, click and view data on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.

 

Google argues that the search-data order could expose highly sensitive queries without adequate anonymization. It also says the Android requirements would weaken security protections by expanding third-party access to deeply integrated device functions.

 

The Android Order Reaches Beyond Default Apps

The Commission’s Android decision covers 11 features grouped around invocation, context, actions and computing resources. Rival assistants would gain routes to perform tasks that currently benefit from Gemini’s privileged integration with Google’s operating system.

 

Those capabilities include voice activation, long-press invocation, access to user-approved on-device app data, context-aware suggestions, ambient sensor inputs and actions across applications. The order also covers background screen automation and equal access to certain on-device models.

 

In practice, an alternative assistant could draft an email, add a calendar event, order food or surface a flight number stored in another app. The Commission says users must explicitly consent before an assistant accesses covered features or personal context.

 

Most requirements are due with Android 18 and no later than August 1, 2027. Concurrent hotword detection, which would allow more than one assistant to respond to separate wake words, has a later deadline tied to Android 19 and August 1, 2028.

 

Search Data Creates the Harder Privacy Dispute

Search quality improves through data showing which queries people enter, what results they click and how ranking changes perform. Google gathers that feedback at enormous scale, creating an advantage that smaller search engines and AI answer services cannot easily reproduce.

 

The Commission wants eligible competitors to receive the same categories of data Google uses to optimize its own search service. Its decision includes a pricing formula, an access process and a multi-layer anonymization method developed with privacy specialists.

 

Regulators also allow Google to assess whether sharing with a specific applicant would create serious cybersecurity or data-protection risks. The Commission can revise the anonymization measures as markets and independent evaluations develop.

 

Google’s appeal tests whether those protections are legally and technically sufficient. Search histories can reveal health concerns, relationships, finances and political interests, making imperfect anonymization more consequential than an ordinary commercial data exchange.

 

DuckDuckGo backed the Commission’s framework and argued that the appeal delays competition. That support does not resolve the privacy question, but it highlights the commercial divide between Google and rivals that view access to scaled search data as essential.

 

The Court Fight Could Shape Mobile AI Competition

The appeals do not automatically erase the Commission’s deadlines. The General Court will examine whether the regulator correctly applied the Digital Markets Act and whether the specified measures remain proportionate to their competition goals.

 

For AI developers, the Android case is especially significant because distribution and permissions can matter as much as model quality. An assistant that cannot respond to a wake word, read approved context or act across apps begins at a structural disadvantage to the platform owner’s service.

 

For search competitors, access to data could improve ranking and evaluation, but only if the information is useful after anonymization and affordable under the Commission’s formula. The implementation details will determine whether the order creates genuine competition or only formal access.

 

The next verifiable milestones are the court’s procedural steps and Google’s implementation work for 2027. Until judges rule or suspend the measures, the company must prepare for interoperability and data sharing while arguing that the Commission has pushed those obligations too far.