Google appeals the European Commission’s DMA mandate to share search data

Google is appealing the mandate from the European Commission from this past July requiring Google to share search history data with competitors in the EU.

What Google said. Oliver Bethell, Google’s senior director of competition, said:

• “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 on Tuesday filed this appeals with the General Court of the European Union, the bloc’s second-highest court, against decisions that gave Google a January 2027 deadline to share search data and a July 2027 deadline to make changes on Android.

Nick Fox, a senior VP at Google, told Pietro Valetto about the security risks of sharing your private search history with competitors. He said:

• “For those queries to be taken outside the four walls of our data centers, where we invest an enormous amount of money in securing our data centers and protecting against hacks and cybersecurity and all of these things… Once those queries are taken outside of Google and handed over to others, they’re subject to hacking and any number of things. So there’s a real risk there that I think needs to be better understood.”

The original mandate said that Google must share the same search data it uses to optimize its own search services, subject to anonymization. So Google would anonymize the data, kind of like they probably do when Google shares data in Search Console.

The fines. In general, companies that fail to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) can be fined up to 10% of annual global revenue, or up to 20% for repeated infringements. The European Union can also impose periodic penalty payments of up to 5% of average daily sales.

Why we care. Sharing Google’s search data could strengthen competing search and AI products, but the practical impact may be limited. Google alternatives already exist. The bigger challenge is changing users’ search habits.

Google clearly does not want to allow this to happen, not just to secure your privacy and safety but also to strengthen its competitive advantage in the EU.