Under Article 6(11) of the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA), Google must make anonymised Google Search data available to eligible third-party online search providers on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. The European Commission’s binding measures, adopted on 16 July 2026, specify what data is covered, who may receive it and how access is controlled.
What Google has to share—and what it does not
The obligation covers anonymised ranking, query, click and view data generated by end users in connection with both free and paid Google Search. The Commission’s specification is based on a principle that Google should share the data it collects and uses to optimise its own search services, with changes needed to protect privacy.
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| Covered by the specification | Not required by these measures |
|---|---|
| Search queries entered through Google Search access points; query metadata such as language and device type; viewed URLs; interactions with results; and information about result positions. The data is transformed or filtered before sharing. | Google’s search algorithm or technology. The Commission says competitors are to use the data to develop their own search technology, not receive Google’s underlying system. |
The dataset is not an unfiltered record of complete search histories. The measures provide for removal or transformation of information, including account details and precise timestamps; suppression of rare or unusually long queries; generalised location; aggregated interaction durations; and removal of URLs for paid results.
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The eligible category is third-party providers of online search engines. The Commission expressly says that an AI chatbot can qualify if it offers search functionality, but being an AI company or chatbot alone is not enough. The Commission’s 2026 FAQ describes criteria that include:
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- Genuine economic activity in the EU, or qualification through the credible-new-entrant route.
- At least 50,000 monthly average users of the search service in the EU over the preceding year.
- Compliance with restrictions relating to sanctions and certain security risks.
- Processing in the European Economic Area (EEA), or safeguards that ensure essentially equivalent protection when data is transferred elsewhere.
- Independent verification before access and continuing audit requirements.
The Commission’s published criteria do not establish that any named company has been approved. Eligibility depends on the service and applicant meeting the specified conditions, not on the label “AI assistant.”
What recipients may do with the data
Recipients may use the dataset to develop and optimise their own online search services. The Commission gives examples such as improving query understanding, spelling and related-query suggestions, ranking and retrieval, indexing, and grounding search-enabled AI answers in current web information.
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Use is restricted to search-service improvement. Recipients may not use the data to train general-purpose AI models, improve unrelated products such as advertising or consumer-profiling services, or systematically copy Google’s results instead of developing their own search technology. Onward disclosure and attempts to identify users are also prohibited.
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The Commission’s specification combines technical anonymisation with contractual, organisational and security controls. The Commission says it developed the approach with privacy experts and in line with draft joint DMA/GDPR guidance; the stated figures are specifications, not independent measurements of re-identification risk.
- Removing identifiers and reducing detail: direct identifiers such as usernames and IP addresses are removed, as are identifying attributes such as precise timestamps. Location and other metadata are generalised, and interaction durations are aggregated.
- Suppressing distinctive records: records containing rare terms or unusually long queries are suppressed.
- Grouping: for the matching metadata described by the Commission, each group must contain at least 1,000 users sharing location, device type and query language. The Commission FAQ says 95% of users will be in groups of at least 25,000.
- Gating and monitoring access: recipients are vetted and independently audited, must meet security and governance requirements, and are subject to retention limits. The Commission describes an audit before access, a first compliance audit within six months of sharing and annual audits thereafter. It says it will monitor the approach and review the measures every two years.
Anonymisation does not mean that every item in the data is necessarily free of personal data. The Commission notes that a query may contain personal data about someone other than the person who submitted it—for example, a searched person’s name. GDPR obligations can therefore still apply to that other person’s data, and recipient search providers act as controllers for that personal data.
How quickly access works, and what it costs
| Term | What the Commission specifies |
|---|---|
| Latency | At least seven days. The sharing method and latency should align with Google’s internal use to the greatest technically feasible extent. |
| Access period | Each beneficiary can choose an access duration of up to five years. |
| Data quality | Google must exclude invalid traffic. |
| Pricing basis | Incremental costs of providing access, plus a reasonable return on capital specifically needed to provide it; that return is capped by Alphabet’s weighted average cost of capital. |
The Commission identifies eligible cost categories including data preparation and formatting, storage needed for sharing, dissemination and transmission, onboarding, and operation of access tools. In exceptional cases an additional margin may be justified, subject to a ceiling tied to Google Search’s operating margin; micro, small and medium-sized enterprises are exempt from that additional margin. A beneficiary’s actual price can depend on how fixed and variable costs are allocated.
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The Commission’s implementation schedule following its 16 July 2026 decision sets a final pricing offer deadline within six months—by January 2027. That is a stated deadline, not confirmation that the offer or every other implementation step has already been completed.
Do not confuse Search data sharing with Android AI access
The Google Search data obligation is Article 6(11). A separate DMA obligation, Article 6(7), concerns interoperability: Google must provide developers free and effective interoperability with hardware and software features controlled by Android. The Commission’s specification adopted on 16 July 2026 covers 11 Android features relevant to AI services, grouped around invocation, context, actions across apps and the operating system, and access to resources.
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That Android measure is intended to enable capabilities such as choosing a third-party assistant by voice, letting it act across apps and providing contextual functions. Access is subject to user-consent protections. It does not give an assistant access to the Search dataset; eligibility and safeguards for Search data are governed separately by Article 6(11).
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