The EU just handed Google two legally binding orders it cannot ignore.
After months of deliberation, the European Commission issued new "specification measures" under the Digital Markets Act, targeting Google's Android platform and its search business. On Android, Google must open AI system access — currently a Gemini exclusive — to competing platforms. Gemini is preloaded on every Google-certified Android device and holds privileged hooks into system automation, screen content, and the "Hey Google" wake word. Rivals get none of that today. The second measure requires Google to share search data with competitors, a move designed to lower the barrier for anyone trying to build a search product in Europe. Google has called both measures threats to user privacy and security.
This matters because it goes after the compounding advantage Google has quietly built: owning the AI that sees your screen and the search index everyone else has to approximate. Forcing data-sharing and platform access doesn't just help scrappy search startups — it could give Microsoft, Apple, or any well-funded rival a legitimate foothold on Android for the first time. The DMA gives the Commission teeth that U.S. antitrust enforcers have spent years wishing they had.
Google has been down this road before — it paid billions in EU fines over Android bundling practices in 2018 — but compliance with behavioral orders has historically been slow and contested. Expect legal challenges, and expect "compliance" to be interpreted as narrowly as Google's lawyers allow.