The European Commission has formally proposed measures requiring Google to share anonymized user search data with competing search engines and AI chatbots, marking a landmark enforcement milestone under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), designed to break the tech giant’s competitive dominance across Europe.
Announced on April 15, 2026, the Commission’s preliminary findings outline six specific compliance areas Google must address under Article 6(11) of the DMA.
Eligibility criteria for data beneficiaries, the scope of shareable data, frequency and technical means of sharing, anonymization standards, pricing principles under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms, and governance processes for data access.
Google to Share Search Data
Critically, AI chatbots with integrated search functionalities, including those directly competing with Google’s own AI products, are explicitly listed as eligible data recipients, significantly broadening the proposal’s reach beyond traditional search engines.
The data types in scope cover four core behavioral categories: ranking, query, click, and view.
Together, these form the feedback loop that continuously trains and sharpens search algorithms, giving Google a self-reinforcing competitive advantage that rivals have long argued is impossible to overcome without equivalent data access.
Under the proposal, Google would be required to deliver this data via API, covering the previous 24 hours of European user search activity, essentially providing near-real-time behavioral intelligence to qualified competitors.
To mitigate re-identification risks, the Commission has embedded several technical safeguards into the proposed framework:
- Data binning to generalize sensitive fields and reduce granularity
- Suppression of rare or low-frequency queries that could identify specific individuals
- Strict contractual obligations are placed on data beneficiaries, restricting secondary use or redistribution
- Removal of direct personal identifiers before data transmission
The Commission has been explicit: the proposal does not require Google to hand over personal search histories; it only requires anonymized, aggregated behavioral signals intended to level the competitive playing field.
Privacy and Security
Despite those safeguards, critics are not fully reassured. Privacy advocates warn that even anonymized query datasets carry significant fingerprinting risks. Combinations of rare search terms, geolocation metadata, and behavioral patterns can potentially re-identify individuals even after standard anonymization techniques are applied.
National security analysts have raised a separate concern: aggregated European citizen search behavior could become accessible to foreign-owned or insufficiently vetted platforms that qualify as data beneficiaries under the framework, creating a potential intelligence exposure risk that the current proposal does not fully address.
The Commission opened a public consultation inviting interested parties to submit feedback by May 1, 2026. Following review of responses from both third parties and Google, the Commission will finalize and issue a binding decision no later than July 27, 2026.
These proceedings run in parallel to, but are separate from, the Commission’s broader DMA non-compliance enforcement powers against Google.
The company was designated a DMA gatekeeper platform in September 2023 and has been subject to full DMA obligations since March 2024.
The outcome of this enforcement action could reshape how AI-powered search products access foundational behavioral data across the EU, setting a precedent with global regulatory implications.
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