Google has filed challenges at the EU General Court against two Digital Markets Act decisions that the European Commission adopted on July 16, Reuters and Bloomberg report. One requires Google to give rival AI assistants the same access to Android features as its own Gemini. The other makes it share search data with rival search engines, including AI chatbots.
New to this? Read it in simple words
- The EU told Google to let rival AI assistants use Android phones as easily as Google’s own Gemini.
- It also told Google to share search data with rival search engines.
- Google has asked an EU court to stop these orders.
- Google says sharing the data could hurt people’s privacy.
- Digital Markets Act
- An EU law that sets rules for the biggest tech platforms so rivals can compete.
- Interoperability
- When products from different companies can work together.
- Anonymised data
- Data changed so it cannot be linked back to a person.
What the orders require
The first decision covers 11 Android features that are almost exclusively available to Gemini today. They include always-on voice activation, screen automation and on-device models.
Google must open them to rival AI services in Android 18, and by August 1, 2027 at the latest.
The second decision makes Google share anonymised search data with rival search engines, and AI chatbots that offer search can receive it too. The Commission set a multi-layered method to anonymise the data and a formula for its price.
Dates from the Commission’s decisions and Reuters’ report on the appeal.
Google’s case
Google filed its challenges at the EU General Court in Luxembourg on Monday, September 28.
“We’re appealing decisions that will force us to share people’s private search history without sufficient anonymisation and weaken vital security protections on Android,” said Oliver Bethell, Google’s senior director of competition.
“People use Search for their most personal questions,” he said, and sharing them without adequate safeguards “would cause irreversible harm to user privacy”.
The other side
The Commission said it will defend its decisions in court, and that both carefully consider security and the protection of users’ personal data.
DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused search engine, backed the Commission: “The anonymization framework is robust and no amount of manufactured doubt changes that. The only thing an appeal buys Google is time.”
About 60% of EU users have an Android device, the Commission says.
Sources
Every fact in this story comes from the sources below. Open them to check our work.
- 1Research · September 29, 2026Google challenges EU orders to open up to AI, search-engine rivals Reuters
- 2Primary source · July 16, 2026Commission provides guidance to Google for AI interoperability on Android and sharing of Google Search data under the Digital Markets Act European Commission
- 3Primary source · Accessed September 29, 2026Alphabet specification proceedings - Interoperability for AI services European Commission
- 4Research · September 29, 2026Google Takes the EU to Court Over Android and Search Data Demands Android Headlines (relaying Bloomberg)
We read Reuters’ report and Android Headlines’ summary of Bloomberg’s, and checked what the orders require on the Commission’s own pages. The quotes from Google, the Commission and DuckDuckGo are as Reuters reported them.