Google troubled by EU move to help AI, search rivals access services

Google ​will be ⁠given guidance by European Union antitrust regulators on how to help online search rivals and artificial intelligence developers access its services and its Gemini AI models, the European Commission said.

Google has long ‌faced criticism from rivals who say its market power ⁠gives ‌it an unfair advantage, and are looking to the ‍EU's Digital Markets Act to give them a ⁠leg up.

The company rejects the allegations.

"Today's proceedings under the Digital Markets Act will provide guidance to Google to ensure that third-party online search engines and AI providers enjoy the same access to search data ‍and Android operating system as Google's own services, like Google Search or Gemini," EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said.

Google expressed concerns ‌after the commission, the EU's competition enforcer, said it had opened two specification proceedings after discussions with the US tech giant on how to comply with the DMA, which aims to rein in big tech's power.

"Android is open by design, and we're already licensing Search data to competitors under the DMA," Google's senior competition counsel Clare Kelly said in a statement.

"However, we are concerned that further rules which are often driven by competitor grievances rather than the interest of consumers, will compromise user privacy, security, and innovation."

In one of the proceedings, regulators will spell out how Google should grant third-party AI service providers equally ‌effective access to the same features as those available to its own AI services such as ‌Gemini.

In the other, the commission will detail how Google should grant third-party providers of online search engines access to anonymised ranking, query, click and view data held by Google Search ‌on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, and the eligibility of AI chatbot providers to access the data.

"We want to maximise the potential and the benefits of this profound technological shift by making sure the playing field ​is open and fair, not tilted in favour of the largest few," EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said in a statement.

Apple got similar guidance from the commission on how it should ⁠open up its ​closed ecosystem to rivals two years ago. 

The commission aims to wrap up proceedings within six months.