The standoff between Google and the European Commission has intensified. Brussels has put forward a proposal that, if confirmed, could fundamentally change how the online search business operates and how many artificial intelligence systems are trained. The focus is on a very specific asset: search data, which the Mountain View giant has controlled almost exclusively until now.
The central idea is that Google will have to share some of that data — queries, clicks, rankings, views and even chatbot interactions with search functions — with other search engines and digital services in Europe, so that they can improve their products and challenge the dominance of the world's most used search engine.
The Digital Markets Act comes into play
This entire movement is based on the Digital Markets Act (DMA) , the law with which the European Union aims to curb the power of large platforms considered "gatekeepers of access." The European Commission opened proceedings against Google at the beginning of the year to verify its compliance with its obligations and has now submitted its preliminary findings.
According to that document, Brussels believes that the way Google currently restricts access to data may be harming competition, especially in a context where artificial intelligence and data-based services are rapidly gaining importance.
The proposal aims to allow other search engines and AI solutions with similar functions to access key information: user queries, ranking positions, click and view metrics , as well as data generated by chatbots acting as conversational search engines. All of this, however, would be under "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory" conditions.
The stated objective is clear: to prevent exclusive control of this data from further strengthening Google's dominant position and to close the door to a near-monopoly scenario in the European online search market.
Search data as a strategic resource
In the Commission's view, search data is much more than just statistics . It is now considered an essential input for technological innovation, both for alternative search engines and for new digital services, including AI assistants and co-pilots like Google Personal Intelligence , which rely on fresh and well-contextualized information.
The Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for Competition, the Spaniard Teresa Ribera , has insisted that data is a key contribution to online searches and to the development of new services, including artificial intelligence, and that access to this information should not be limited in a way that harms competition.
Along these lines, the EU proposal stipulates that access to Google data must be granted under conditions of transparency and non-discrimination . The aim is to create a framework for negotiations between Google and potential beneficiaries: rival search engines, developers of discovery tools, and AI solution providers.
To make it operational, Brussels goes into considerable detail: it defines which actors will be able to access the data , what type of information must be shared, how frequently access will be granted, and under what parameters prices will be set. Furthermore, it makes all of this conditional on guaranteeing the anonymization of personal data, in line with European data protection regulations.
What would Google have to share, and with whom?
The technical requirements set by the Commission are extensive. On the one hand, it defines a set of "data beneficiaries" who could access the information: third-party search engines, platforms with internal search capabilities, and AI services that act as a search engine, including conversational chatbots.
On the other hand, the scope of the exchange is being defined. Brussels wants rivals to be able to receive data related to the query (what is being searched for), the ranking (in what order the results are displayed), the interaction (which links are clicked, how much they are viewed), and the content generated by AI-based search tools.
The Commission also sets criteria for establishing the frequency and means of access : how the data is delivered, how often, under what APIs or technical formats, and what security and traceability obligations should accompany the process.
Another key element is pricing. It is argued that any financial compensation for accessing this data must be based on clear, transparent, and non-discriminatory parameters , so that Google cannot favor some actors over others through opaque pricing.
Privacy first: the clash with Google's arguments
Google's reaction, unsurprisingly, has been highly critical. The company claims that Brussels' proposal is an "overreach" that not only goes beyond the mandate of the DMA, but could seriously compromise the privacy and security of European users.
Clare Kelly, Google's senior legal advisor on competition matters, has emphasized that hundreds of millions of people in Europe rely on the search engine for their most sensitive inquiries: questions about health, family issues, personal finances, or delicate situations. She argues that forcing the company to share this data with third parties, even in anonymized form, would mean delegating that trust to systems with "dangerously ineffective" privacy protections .
Google argues that the request far exceeds what the law allows , and that it would be required to hand over private data to companies that, in its view, do not have the same security standards. This is the core of its argument: it's not just about competition, but about protecting users' most intimate information and the ongoing debates about the risks of AI.
The company also points out that it has already submitted its own compliance proposals to appease both European regulators and its rivals, but believes that the measures demanded by Brussels go too far. At the same time, it carries a long history of sanctions: more than €9.700 billion in antitrust fines in Europe since 2017 and accusations of violating the DMA since 2025.
A tight schedule and open public consultation
The initiative is currently in a key public consultation phase . The European Commission has invited all stakeholders—Google, its competitors, developers, consumer associations, and other players in the digital sector—to submit comments until May 1.
This period will be used to fine-tune the technical and legal details of the measures, especially the most sensitive points: what is considered anonymized data, what limits are imposed on the reuse of information, and how compliance with the rules by beneficiaries is monitored.
Once the comment period has ended, Brussels will revise its proposal, if it deems necessary, and turn it into a binding decision . The Commission has set a deadline of July 27 to adopt the final resolution, which will officially establish what Google must do in Europe regarding the sharing of search data.
If, at the end of the process, Google's non-compliance with the DMA is confirmed and it fails to adapt its behavior, the company risks fines of up to 10% of its global annual revenue . In a group like Alphabet, the search engine's parent company, we would be talking about multi-billion dollar sums that go far beyond a simple reprimand.
Impact on competition and on European companies
Beyond the regulatory dispute, analysts agree that access to search data could reshape the European digital market . Dario Maisto, from the firm Forrester, believes the Commission's decision may come at an inopportune moment, but sees it as aligned with the need to reduce dependence on foreign providers and technologies that currently set the standard.
Maisto points out that, in practice, the synonym for "searching the internet" is still "Google it." The big question is whether opening up the data will be enough to change users' habits. In other words, providing access to the raw data is one thing, but getting people to adopt other search engines when they've been using the same one for years is quite another.
Brian Jackson, director of research at Info-Tech Research Group, points out that data sharing could revive specialized search engines , especially in high-value vertical sectors (healthcare, finance, industry, professional services) where users need results highly tailored to their reality.
In that scenario, companies' digital teams would need to optimize their presence across multiple discovery environments , rather than focusing all their efforts on Google. And software buyers would have more alternatives, as more vendors could offer search and intelligence solutions based on real behavioral data.
A more fragmented (and riskier) search ecosystem
However, this fragmentation also has its downside. Jackson himself warns that a search ecosystem with many players relying on the same data could encourage more aggressive business models, increase the risk of results manipulation, foster fraud, and heighten biases in certain contexts.
In such an environment, data governance and regulatory oversight become even more critical. More search channels mean more potential points of abuse , forcing both regulators and companies themselves to strengthen controls.
For Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research, the real earthquake lies not so much in the word "competition" as in who controls the interpretation of business information . For years, many companies have relied on the stability of a near-monopoly discovery layer, dominated by Google.
This stability dictated everything from how content was written and SEO was done to how digital performance was measured. If data becomes open and alternative search engines and AI systems with different logics flourish, the same content could be displayed differently depending on the search engine or assistant interpreting it, creating inconsistencies in how brands are perceived.
Redefining "optimization" in the age of AI
Gogia argues that we are heading toward a more profound change: search has become the layer that powers AI , co-pilots, and many automated decisions. Once that layer fragments and is no longer concentrated in a single provider, companies lose a clear point of reference for how they are perceived externally.
This loss of consistency may seem minor at first, but over time it acquires a tangible impact on reputation and business . Brands could find that their message appears one way in a chatbot, another way in a traditional search engine, and yet another way in a specialized vertical search engine, all of which are fed by similar data but interpreted differently.
For European companies, all of this means redefining their understanding of "optimization." Simply positioning themselves well on a single dominant platform will no longer suffice ; they will need to consider how content is expressed to fit multiple systems simultaneously, how results are monitored, and what to do when an AI algorithm presents an inaccurate or biased view of business reality.
At the same time, questions arise about the quality of the shared data: if it is anonymized and aggregated too much, it loses some of its value for model training and engine tuning. And if it is shared with a higher level of detail, concerns grow about privacy and potential re-identification.
Underlying this clash between Brussels and Google is a fundamental question about who sets the rules of the game in Europe: will it be EU regulation , imposing openness and limits on the power of the big players, or will the platforms themselves, with their control over data, continue to dictate the evolution of the search engine of the future and the AI ​​that accompanies it?