EU forces Google to share search data and open Android to rival AI assistants

The European Commission just handed Google a pair of mandates that strike at the core of its business. Under new specification decisions announced Thursday, the search giant must give competitors access to its search data and pry Android open to third-party AI assistants like Alexa or ChatGPT — not just Gemini.

You read that right. The Commission wants Google to share the same data it collects to optimize its own search services, including with rival AI chatbots, subject to anonymization. The goal, as regulators put it, is to “rebalance the playing field.” On the mobile front, Google will be required to let users activate their preferred AI assistant by voice and allow those assistants to take actions within apps. The EC noted that currently, “competitors’ AI assistants only have restricted access to key functionalities” on Android phones.

Google’s response was swift and predictable. Kent Walker, the company’s president of global affairs, warned the Android ruling “threatens device security by granting external apps sensitive and powerful device permissions without [OEM] safeguards.” He also argued the search data sharing would expose Europeans’ private searches to “unfamiliar companies, without adequate anonymisation of the data and without user knowledge or consent.” The Chamber of Progress, a tech industry group funded partly by Google, piled on, with VP Kay Jebelli saying the likely result is “services will be pulled while legal challenges are mounted.”

But here’s the part Google’s statement glosses over. The Commission’s fine print explicitly states that Google retains final say over what gets shared and can block access to third parties that don’t meet “privacy, security and integrity standards.” The data must be scrubbed of rare items like usernames, passwords, and bank details before any handoff. This isn’t a free-for-all. It’s a structured opening with guardrails still firmly in Google’s grip, which makes the apocalyptic rhetoric from Mountain View feel more like a negotiation tactic than a genuine security alarm.