The tech giant is again experiencing a huge regulatory point because the regulators are planning to explain how Google should open its digital ecosystem to competitors within the search and artificial intelligence sectors. It is centered around the access: access to search information, access to the Android operating system, and access to highly artificial intelligence like Gemini models created by Google. To a company whose power has been founded upon scale, integration and proprietary systems, the consequences are far reaching and extensive.
The core of the problem is the assumption of both regulators and other competitors that Google has structural benefits because of its dominance in the market that are inaccessible to smaller search engines and other developers of AI that is still emerging. Over the years, competitors have been insisting that it is almost impossible to compete with one player offering quality products unless that particular player has the most worthwhile datasets, default placements and integrations on the system level. Such concerns have since been converted into official action that would outline in details how Google would be expected to abide by new rules of competition which are meant to level the playing field.
The regulators have clarified that they are not out to punish innovation but to ensure that dominance does not take hold and become a status quo. As per the authorities, the policy under development is set to guarantee that third-party online search engines and the AI providers will be granted access to the core services to the same degree that Google itself is granted access. According to EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen, today under the Digital Markets Act proceedings will give the direction to Google to make sure that third-party online search engines and AI service providers have access to search data, and Android operating system opportunities as Google Search or Gemini.
In the case of Google, this is a fine walking act. On the one hand, the company claims to be already in compliance with the law and has made significant efforts to share data and offer interoperability. On the one hand, it is afraid that additional commitments can destroy user trust and integrity of the product. Such tensions are particularly acute in the frames of artificial intelligence when access to high-quality data can make the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful model.
This concern is shown by the response of the company. Google Senior Competition Counsel Clare Kelly has come to the defence of the company by admitting that Android is open source and that Google is already licensing Search data to other firms under the DMA. But she cautioned as well about the unintended consequences and she said, further-on, that additional regulations, which are frequently motivated by competitor complaints and not user interest, will undermine user privacy, security, and innovation.
This backlash is no new defense by giant technology companies: that regulation, despite good intentions, may actually harm the users that it claims to prevent. The management of Google has always maintained that the tightly integrated systems can enable more favorable security controls, ease of use, and quicker innovation cycles. In this sense, mandatory data disclosures and feature equality pose a risk to platforms disintegration and sensitive data leakage.
Regulators interpret it in a different manner. In one of the proceedings, the authorities will describe how Google can provide third-party AI service providers with the same features and capabilities that it provides its own AI offerings, such as Gemini. This is more than raw data and into the mechanics of the ways in which AI systems can relate to search, operating systems, and user interfaces. To smaller developers of AI, the level of equal access may be the distinction between developing viable alternatives and being trapped on bigger platforms forever.
The second proceeding deals with search data per se. Regulators are looking to specify the way Google should divulge anonymised ranking signals, search queries, clicks and view data to competing search engines. It is based on reasonable, fair and non-discriminatory conditions, which are commonly employed in competition policy and which are notoriously difficult to work with in practice. The questions of how anonymisation will be approached, how data will be refreshed, and whether the access will enable the competitors to copy or even to better the results of Google remain.
The second distinctive point is that the providers of AI chatbots may also be listed among the possible beneficiaries of this data. Search and chat are not different fields anymore as conversational AI continues being a portal to information. The decision to make chatbot developers access the search information would change the way people find information online, making it less dependent on one predominant interface.
The overall vision of these actions was established by the chief of competition Teresa Ribera, who said: We want to get the most out of this far-reaching technological change by ensuring that the playing field is level and just, not biased in favour of the biggest few. Her statements are indicative of an emerging trend among policy-makers that artificial intelligence is an underlying technology, and that the advantages thereof should not be confined behind the doors of corporations.
As an industry, this point of time seems to be a turning point. Google is not only being requested to make alterations to business practices, but to reconsider the way openness puts into the long-term strategy of the company. The shift in user behavior has already posed a threat to the dominance of the company in the search, as younger generations are beginning to resort to social sites and AI assistants to find solutions. The regulatory pressure is another complexity that comes at a time when the competitive environment is in change.
Another question is deeper regarding incentives. Should major companies have to distribute the results of their investment with others in the industry, will this deter innovation? Or will it, as regulators hope, trigger a more diverse ecosystem where numerous players can develop based on common foundations to develop a superior product? History provides examples to the contrary, and the result is not so clear.
