Google challenges EU orders to open up to AI, search-engine rivals

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Alphabet's Google has challenged two EU orders to help AI rivals such as OpenAI access its services and search engine competitors to access its search data, saying these would undermine privacy safeguards and cause irreversible harm to European users.

EU antitrust regulators ordered the US tech giant in July to help online search rivals and artificial intelligence developers use services available to its Gemini AI model under rules known as the Digital Markets Act, which is aimed at reining in Big Tech.   

The challenges escalate a clash between Google and EU regulators over the scope of the DMA, with the company arguing that compliance measures designed to open up competition would come at the cost of user privacy and security. 

The changes will kick in next year. Google filed its challenges to the Luxembourg-based General Court, Europe's second-highest court, on Monday.

"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. 

"People use Search for their most personal questions — from medical worries to close relationships — and mandating we share these personal queries without adequate safeguards would cause irreversible harm to user privacy," he said.

The European Commission, which enforces the DMA, said it took note of Google's legal challenge.

"As always, the Commission will defend its decisions in court," a spokesperson said.

"More generally, it should be stressed that the Commission's two specification decisions carefully consider the integrity and security with respect to the features involved, as well as ensuring the protection of the personal data of end users."

DuckDuckGo, a US-based internet privacy company known for its search engine that does not track users' search history or personal data, backed the EU watchdog.

"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. 

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee in Brussels; Editing by Matthew Lewis)