The European Commission just told Google to do two things it really, really does not want to do: share its search data with competitors and let rival AI models play on Android with the same privileges as its own Gemini.
The twin mandates, issued Thursday under the Digital Markets Act, represent the most concrete effort yet by Brussels to pry open the data moats that tech giants have spent decades building. Full compliance is expected by 2027, giving Google roughly a year to figure out how to hand over the keys without losing the castle.
What Google actually has to do
The first requirement is straightforward in concept, thorny in execution. Google must share anonymized ranking data, search queries, click-through metrics, and view data with third-party search engines and qualifying AI chatbots. The terms must be fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory, a framework Brussels calls FRAND.
The second mandate targets Android. The Commission wants rival AI services to have equivalent access to the operating system’s hardware and software features, the same deep integration currently reserved for Gemini. Think messaging hooks, on-device ordering capabilities, and the system-level permissions that make an AI assistant feel native rather than bolted on.
