According to the Digital Markets Act, the European Commission (EU) sent Google its preliminary conclusions. The said conclusions include perticular recommendations for regulating obligations of Google to share search data with third-party search engines and, crucially, with AI chatbots that have search capabilities.
Six particular areas of obligation are outlined in the conclusions, which were published on April 16, 2026. On Friday, April 17, a public consultation will be held to allow third parties, including Google’s rivals and their representatives, to provide feedback on the proposed actions before they are finalised.
The Commission’s proposed measures cover six areas: the eligibility of “data beneficiaries” to receive search data, including the contentious issue of whether AI chatbots with search capabilities qualify; the extent of the search data Google must share; the methods and frequency of data sharing; steps to guarantee appropriate anonymisation of personal data; guidelines for establishing fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory prices for the data; and the governance procedures by which beneficiaries access it.
Particularly important is the combination of price parameters and access governance: Brussels is not only requiring data sharing but also outlining in some detail how the technical and commercial terms of access should operate.
The package’s most economically significant component is the AI chatbot eligibility question.
Google Search has decades of accumulated user behaviour data that its competitors have generally been unable to replicate at scale. This data includes what queries users input, which results they click on, which they skip, and how they reformulate searches when they do not find what they are looking for.
In accordance to traditional search rivals like Bing, DuckDuckGo, as well as Ecosia, this difference is a structural challenge to real competition.
The main objective of said actions is to make the DMA’s Article 6(11) requirement easier to understand. The said requirement states that the right to access must be made available on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms. For now it is difficult to say who is eligible.
The Commission is indicating that it views conversational AI systems that directly respond to queries as competitors in the same market as traditional search engines and, as such, are entitled to the same data access rights by specifically including AI chatbots with search capabilities in the proposed measures.
The primary results are in, and they indicate that the specification process is halfway executed. It started on January 27, 2026. The Commission started those proceedings after deciding that current data-sharing agreements of Google were not enough to create real competition. This is a new enforcement tool under the DMA that is meant to show how a gatekeeper must follow a certain rule instead of immediately finding it in breach.
The Commission has until late July 2026 to complete the procedures, which must be done within six months of their January opening. Before any final actions are taken, Google now has the chance to provide a written response to the preliminary findings.
Eventhougt, they establish the legal framework for one, the processes do not constitute a finding of non-compliance. The Commission has the power to issue a formal non-compliance decision with fines of up to 10% of international annual turnover of Alphabet, if Google doesn’t comply with the measures it ultimately implements. Given Alphabet’s revenues, this amount could surpass $35 billion.
Senior competition counsel of Google, Clare Kelly, exhibited concerns about the January launch. She emphasized that the business was “already licensing Search data to competitors under the DMA” and pointed out that further regulations “offered driven by competitor grievances rather than the interests of consumers” could harm innovation, privacy, and security.
EVP Teresa Ribera, stated that, the opposing viewpoint of Commission is that access to truly important data is vital in order to successfully “maximise the potential and the benefits of this profound technological shift by making sure the playing field is open and fair.”
The move taken today is one of multiple concurrent DMA enforcement initiatives against Google. Google’s Android interoperability requirements are addressed in a parallel set of specification proceedings, which mandate that third-party AI service providers have equally effective access to the same Android hardware and software characteristics that underpin Gemini.
In March 2025, the Commission released preliminary findings separate from these specification proceedings, claiming that Google Search illegally self-preferences its own vertical services, Google Shopping, Hotels, and Flightsm. This non-compliance track carries its own fine exposure and is ongoing concurrently.
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