Adam Hafez
Key takeaways
- Google said on 29 September 2026 that it is appealing the Commission's decisions on search data sharing and on Android at the EU General Court.
- The Commission page says Google must share anonymised ranking, query, click and view data with eligible search engines on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.
- Search Engine Roundtable reports a January 2027 deadline for sharing search data and a July 2027 deadline for the Android changes.
- Nick Fox said Google had to remove features in Europe and pull back spam protections, so European users see lower-quality results.
- Fox said people still click through to the web a lot, and that Google sends billions of clicks to it from Search and from its AI experiences.
Google said on 29 September 2026 that it is appealing two European Commission decisions under the Digital Markets Act. One requires it to share search data with competitors, the other covers Android. The same week, Search chief Nick Fox repeated Google’s case in an interview.
What does the Commission require?
The Commission’s page on the proceedings says its decision was adopted on 16 July 2026. Under Article 6(11) of the DMA, Google must share anonymised ranking, query, click and view data with eligible online search engines, on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. The page says this includes AI chatbots that offer search.
What does Google say?
Oliver Bethell, Google’s senior director of competition, said Google is appealing decisions that “will force us to share people’s private search history without sufficient anonymization” and weaken security protections on Android. Search Engine Roundtable reports a January 2027 deadline for sharing search data and July 2027 for the Android changes.
What did Nick Fox say?
Interviewed in Brussels on 21 September and published on 25 September, Fox said the changes make him feel terrible, and that Google has removed features such as real-time flight pricing and searching by trip dates. He also said:
- Google has “had to pull back on spam protection” in Europe, so users see lower-quality results.
- Handing queries to competitors, typically not European companies, would not enable European competition in a meaningful way.
The spam remark connects to Google’s earlier site reputation policy split along the EEA border.
Do people still click through?
Asked about zero-click searches, Fox said that is not what Google is seeing: people still click through a lot, and Google sends billions of clicks to the web from Search and from its AI experiences. He gave no figures beyond that, and the interview is Google’s own account.
What is not known yet?
The General Court has not ruled, and a Commission response to the appeal is not in the sources we read. The Commission page does not mention the appeal. Until a ruling, the decisions’ deadlines remain Google’s to meet or contest, and we cannot say whether any suspension applies.
The evidence
- Type
- industry
- Impact
- medium
- Affects
- Google Search in Europe, Digital Markets Act, Spam protections, Search data sharing
Sources
- 1.Alphabet specification proceedings - Sharing of Google Search data - European Commission Digital Markets ActPrimary
- 2.Exclusive interview with Google's Nick Fox on the future of AI - Popular Economics (Pietro Valetto), September 25, 2026Primary
- 3.Google Appeals Europe's DMA Mandate To Share Search History Data - Search Engine Roundtable, September 29, 2026
- 4.Google's Nick Fox Feels Sad & Terrible For European Searchers After DMA - Search Engine Roundtable, September 29, 2026
Frequently asked questions
What is Google appealing?
Two Digital Markets Act decisions: one requiring it to share anonymised search data with rival search engines, and one on Android. The appeal went to the EU General Court, per Google's statement as reported by Search Engine Roundtable.
Who can receive Google's search data under the Commission's decision?
Eligible online search engines, including AI chatbots that offer search functionality, under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. The Commission page lists audit and data protection conditions.
Does this change how Google ranks European sites?
Not directly. Fox said Google pulled back some spam protections in Europe, which links to the site reputation abuse change, but Google has published no ranking figures for Europe.
About the author
Founder, UpgradIQ FZC LLC
Adam Hafez works on technical SEO and search measurement: how pages get crawled, indexed, ranked and now quoted by answer engines. He founded UpgradIQ, which reads Google Search Console and GA4 to tie ranking movement back to the changes that caused it. He publishes what the data supports and states the limits of it.
- Technical SEO
- Search Console and GA4 measurement
- Answer engine optimization
- Structured data
The briefing
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