Google has challenged two European Union orders requiring it to provide rival artificial-intelligence services with greater access to Android features and make anonymised search data available to eligible competitors. The company filed its appeals before the General Court in Luxembourg, escalating its dispute with the European Commission over the implementation of the Digital Markets Act.
The binding measures were issued in July and address two parts of Google’s platform operations. The Android decision requires Google to give competing AI assistants access to features currently available to Gemini. The search decision establishes how third-party search services, including AI chatbots offering search functions, can obtain data that Google collects at scale to optimise its own search engine.
Under the Android measures, users in the European Union are intended to gain the ability to activate their preferred assistant through voice commands and allow it to perform actions across applications. Examples identified by the Commission include booking a taxi through another app, suggesting replies in messaging services and responding to questions about recently visited locations.
The search-data framework covers information used in developing and improving ranking and search services. The Commission says shared data must be anonymised through a multilayered process and provided under a fair pricing formula. Google is also permitted to assess whether releasing data to a particular recipient would create serious cybersecurity or data-protection risks.
Google maintains that the requirements do not contain sufficient safeguards. Oliver Bethell, the company’s senior director of competition, said the decisions could require the sharing of private search histories without adequate anonymisation and weaken Android security protections. The Commission said its specifications had considered device integrity, security and the protection of end-user data and that it would defend the decisions in court.
The compliance changes are scheduled to begin next year. Google’s appeal does not itself remove the obligations, although the company could seek interim relief while the case proceeds. The litigation will therefore run alongside the technical work required to implement assistant interoperability and search-data access.
The dispute is relevant to a wider regulatory debate about whether mobile operating systems should treat third-party AI assistants as replaceable services with access comparable to a platform owner’s own assistant. It also tests whether search-interaction data can be shared with competitors in a way that improves competition without exposing personal information or creating new security risks.
India has already required Google to alter aspects of its Android and Play operations following competition proceedings. The Competition Commission of India imposed a ₹1,337.76 crore penalty in its Android mobile-device case and directed changes affecting application distribution and interoperability. Google subsequently announced India-specific modifications to Android and Google Play. The European litigation concerns different legal obligations, but its outcome will provide another test of platform-level access rules that combine competition, privacy and cybersecurity requirements.
