Published July 17
EU regulators ruled this week that Google will have to share search data with competing search services, including AI chatbots with search functionality and rival search engines. It’s a move that could reshape the market for AI-powered search — and search advertising — by making rivals such as ChatGPT and Perplexity more competitive.
The European Commission said Google must begin sharing the anonymized ranking, query, click and view data it uses to improve its own search services from January 2027. Eligible recipients could include OpenAI’s ChatGPT, as well as Perplexity, Ecosia and DuckDuckGo.
The Commission also said it will establish a “fair” pricing formula for access to that data. While Google said in the past that it was already licensing data to competitors in Europe, the Commission said this arrangement had proved “ineffective so far.”
The Current reported on the opening of this investigation six months ago. At the time, the EU’s antitrust chief said the aim was to ensure the AI revolution would be “open and fair, not tilted in favor of the largest few.”
This week’s ruling reinforced that aim. “Our decision will help smaller competitors, search engines or AI assistants to compete and provide that choice, while protecting the user’s privacy,” Teresa Ribera, the bloc’s antitrust chief, said in a statement.
Google said the decision risks “undermining vital privacy and security guardrails for millions of Europeans.” Any appeal would not automatically suspend the company’s obligation to comply with the legally binding measures.
The European Commission’s move could help level the playing field in “the most lucrative advertising ‘channel’ of all time,” as Aaron Goldman, chief marketing officer at omnichannel advertising company Mediaocean, called it in an interview with The Current earlier this year.
