Two Orders, One Target
On 16 July 2026, the European Commission adopted its first specification decisions against Google under the Digital Markets Act — binding technical instructions rather than a settlement or a fine, telling a gatekeeper precisely how to satisfy obligations it has spent two years contesting in the abstract. The first order, grounded in DMA Article 6(7), requires Google to give third-party AI assistants access to 11 groups of Android device features that Gemini currently uses alone: voice invocation, on-screen context awareness, cross-app task delegation and device-resource access among them. Practically, a rival assistant will be able to register its own wake word and claim the same system-wide triggers — the long-press home button, the navigation handle — that were previously reserved for "Hey Google."
The second order, under Article 6(11), compels Google to share the anonymised ranking, query, click and view data it uses to run Search with rival search engines and AI chatbot providers — the Commission's guidance names OpenAI as an intended beneficiary — on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. The measures set out a formula for pricing that data and a multi-layered anonymisation method developed, the Commission says, with input from privacy experts and aligned with the draft Joint Guidelines on the DMA-GDPR interplay it is preparing with the European Data Protection Board.
The Timeline Is Real, Not Aspirational
Unlike earlier phases of DMA enforcement, which mostly consisted of Google proposing compliance workshops and the Commission expressing dissatisfaction, this decision comes with dates. Rivals' access to the Android feature set must be phased in through the Android 18 release, with full measures due by 1 August 2027; search-data pricing terms are due by January 2027, with a finalised dataset by November 2026. Non-compliance carries the DMA's standard penalty structure under Article 30: fines up to 10% of Google's total worldwide turnover for a first infringement, rising to 20% for repeat violations. That is not a cost Google can treat as the price of doing business.
Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera framed the rationale as market-structural rather than punitive: "We want to maximise the potential and the benefits of this profound technological shift by making sure the playing field is open and fair, not tilted in favour of the largest few." Henna Virkkunen, who oversees tech sovereignty, added that the goal is to "support innovation and diversity in the EU, enabling fair competition in AI assistant markets for Android."
The Case for the Order
The Commission's strongest argument doesn't require any hostility toward Google to accept: a company that controls both the operating system and a leading AI assistant has a structural means, not just an incentive, to make its own product the path of least resistance — reserving the best wake-word behavior, the deepest system hooks, and the richest first-party data for itself while rivals negotiate for years over API access. That is exactly the self-preferencing dynamic Article 6(7) and 6(11) were written for, and unresolved licensing disputes over search data and Android APIs have in fact dragged on since the DMA took effect in 2023. A specification decision with a formula, an anonymisation method, and a compliance date is a meaningfully sharper tool than another round of "good faith" negotiation.
The Case for Caution
But this is also the most technically prescriptive DMA order to date, and prescription carries real costs. Google's president of global affairs, Kent Walker, argued the decisions "risk undermining vital privacy and security guardrails for millions of Europeans," and while that's a predictable line from a company being told what to build, the underlying tension is genuine: anonymising click-and-query data well enough to prevent re-identification while keeping it useful enough for a competitor to build a real search index is a hard engineering problem, and the Commission is now the arbiter of whether Google's implementation clears that bar. The order also tries to police downstream use — recipients can't use the shared data to train general-purpose AI models or build ad-profiling products — which means Brussels has signed up for years of technical monitoring, not a one-time remedy. A regulator locking in a specific pricing formula and anonymisation architecture in mid-2026 risks freezing a technical approach just as AI search products are changing fastest.
Why the Precedent Outlasts the Fight
Google is expected to appeal, but under the DMA an appeal does not suspend the compliance clock — Google must build to these specifications while litigating them, a sequencing that meaningfully favors the Commission's leverage over any single case's merits. That sequencing, more than the Android feature list or the search-data formula, is the part worth watching: it establishes that DMA specification decisions function as immediately binding technical mandates, not opening bids in a negotiation. If the anonymisation scheme genuinely protects users while letting rivals compete, that's a template other gatekeepers should expect to see applied to them. If it doesn't hold up under real-world use, the Commission will have set a precedent for prescriptive technical rulemaking without yet proving it can execute one well.