Google has challenged two European Union orders requiring the technology giant to open parts of its services to rivals in artificial intelligence and online search, arguing that the measures could weaken privacy safeguards and cause irreversible harm to users.
The challenges deepen a dispute between Google and EU antitrust regulators over the scope of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the bloc’s legislation designed to increase competition by placing additional obligations on the largest technology companies.
EU regulators ordered Google in July to take steps allowing online search competitors and artificial intelligence developers to use services available to its Gemini AI model. The measures are scheduled to take effect next year.
Google filed its challenges on Monday with the General Court in Luxembourg, the EU’s second-highest court. The company argues that complying with the orders would require it to share sensitive user information without adequate safeguards and weaken security protections on Android devices.
“We’re appealing decisions that will force us to share people’s private search history without sufficient anonymisation and weaken vital security protections on Android,” Google’s senior director of competition, Oliver Bethell, said in a statement.
Bethell said Google Search was used for highly personal queries, including medical concerns and questions about relationships. He argued that requiring the company to share such information without sufficient safeguards could cause irreversible damage to user privacy.
The dispute centres on two areas of Google’s business. One concerns access to data from its search engine, which EU regulators want made available to competing search services. The other concerns services connected to Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence system, with regulators seeking to enable rival AI developers to use capabilities that Google makes available through its own model.
The European Commission, which is responsible for enforcing the DMA, has rejected Google’s concerns about the protections contained in the measures. The Commission has said the orders include safeguards designed to protect users’ privacy, the integrity of devices and security.
DuckDuckGo, a US-based search company that promotes itself as a privacy-focused alternative to Google, has supported the EU regulator’s position. The company said the proposed anonymisation framework was robust and rejected Google’s concerns about privacy protections.
“The anonymization framework is robust and no amount of manufactured doubt changes that. The only thing an appeal buys Google is time,” a DuckDuckGo spokesperson said.
Google’s legal challenge places privacy and security at the centre of a broader European effort to force dominant technology platforms to provide competitors with greater access to services and data. The company maintains that the requirements could expose users to risks, while EU regulators argue that safeguards can allow greater competition without compromising privacy or device security.
The cases will now be considered by the General Court, as the measures adopted under the DMA move towards implementation next year.
