The European Union has issued two new rules for Google, forcing the company to share search data and open its Android operating system to rival AI companies. This move is part of the EU’s efforts to rein in the control of tech behemoths over the digital economy.

Supporting Innovation and Diversity

The EU hopes that these measures will support innovation and diversity in the field, enabling fair access to AI features on Android devices and search engines. According to Henna Virkkunen, an executive vice president at the European Commission overseeing tech, the goal is to see emerging alternatives to Google Search and Google’s AI services, such as Gemini, and to provide users in the EU with greater choice of services.

Google must now allow voice-activation of alternative AI agents and enable them to run background tasks like booking restaurants via third-party apps. By January 2027, Google must also begin sharing anonymized search data with some rivals. The commission said the move is meant to level the playing field since Google controls a vast trove of user data that no competitor can match.

Kent Walker, president of global affairs for both Google and its parent company Alphabet, has expressed concerns that the new rules could backfire by removing safeguards that the company had built to protect user privacy. He stated that Europeans’ private searches would be exposed to unfamiliar companies without adequate anonymization of the data and without user knowledge or consent.

Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.