Alphabet, Google’s parent company, challenged on Monday two European Union orders requiring it to help rivals in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector access its services and to help competing search engines access its search data.
Alphabet argued the moves would undermine privacy safeguards and harm European users.
The European Commission ordered the American tech company in July to help developers in both spheres use services available through its Gemini AI model under the Digital Markets Act, which Brussels says is designed to ensure fair competition in the tech sector and prevent monopolies.
“We’re appealing decisions that will force us to share people’s private search history without sufficient anonymization and weaken vital security protections on Android,” Google’s senior director of competition, Oliver Bethell, said in a statement.
“People use Search for their most personal questions—from medical worries to close relationships—and mandating we share these personal queries without adequate safeguards would cause irreversible harm to user privacy.”
Google contends that the decision compels it to turn over private search data to unvetted businesses without proper anonymization, or the user’s knowledge or consent.
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The company says that, due to the nature of this data, users could easily be re-identified by third parties once it leaves Google’s systems, risking the exposure of information about their personal lives, trade secrets, or sensitive government data.
The progress of AI, Google argues, has also made the process of re-identifying users from this data far faster and cheaper.
The EU-enforced changes are set to kick in in January 2027.
Google’s challenges, filed in the Luxembourg-based General Court, Europe’s second-highest court, on Sept. 28, will not prevent them from taking effect unless the California company seeks interim measures to delay them as proceedings continue.
A European Commission spokesperson told The Epoch Times that the commission “takes note that Alphabet has announced that it will lodge an appeal against the Commission’s decisions at the General Court. As always, the Commission will defend its decisions in court.”
The Commission added that it should be “stressed that the two specification decisions carefully consider the integrity and security with respect to the features involved, as well as ensuring the protection of the personal data of end users.”
At the time, the commission said the first decision aimed to ensure that competitors’ AI services “can compete with Google’s own AI services, such as Gemini, by having equal access to features on Google’s Android devices.”
The aim of the second, the EU said, was to “rebalance the playing field by giving third-party search engines access to search data that only Google Search can collect at scale.”
Google’s move marks the latest escalation in the company’s long-running battle with European regulators over the scope of the Digital Markets Act.
In a Truth Social post on July 24, Trump said the investigation would begin “immediately” under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to protect U.S. businesses against unfair trade practices with tariffs and sanctions.
He accused the EU of “robbing” U.S. companies and, in turn, American taxpayers.
“The European Union is at it again and, as usual, taking direct aim at GREAT American Companies!” Trump wrote, referring to European enforcement actions over recent years against Google, Apple, Meta, and Amazon.
As yet, there have been no public revelations regarding that investigation.
