The European Commission has started two sets of proceedings to assist Google in complying with its obligations under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The specifications formalise the Commission’s regulatory dialogue with Google on certain areas of its compliance with two DMA obligations.
The first set of proceedings concerns Google’s obligation under the Article 6(7) of the DMA to provide third-party developers with interoperability with hardware and software features controlled by Google’s android operating system. The proceedings focus on features used by Google’s AI services such as Gemini. The Commission’s intent is to specify how Google grants third-party AI service providers equally effective access to the same features as those available to Google’s own services. This aims to ensure third-party providers have an equal opportunity to innovate and compete in the rapidly evolving AI landscape on mobile devices.
The second set of proceedings are about Google’s obligation under Article 6(11) of the DMA to grant third-party providers of online search engines access to anonymised ranking, query, click and view data held by google on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. They focus on the scope of data, the anonymisation method, conditions of access and eligibility of AI chatbot providers to access data. Effective compliance and access to a useful database aim to allow third-party online search engine providers to optimise services and offer users genuine alternatives to Google Search.
The Commission aims to conclude proceedings within six months of their opening. It will communicate its preliminary findings to Google in the next three months setting out draft measures it intends to impose on Google to ensure compliance with the DMA.
