The European Commission has sent Google proposed measures to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). If these measures are enacted, Google would be required to “allow third party search engines to access search data, such as ranking, query, click and view data, on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.”

Is this the first major step in breaking Google’s search monopoly? Honestly, probably not. But I’ll be getting the popcorn anyway.

These measures are being proposed specifically to allow other search engines and LLMs to “optimise their search services and contest Google Search’s position.”

It’s not binding yet, but a final decision is due by July 27, 2026. 

If enacted, this is possibly the largest and most direct action taken against Google’s monopoly in the last 20 years. 

With asterisks.

Why this one’s different

The European Commission designated Google as a “gatekeeper” under the Digital Markets Act in May 2024, triggering mandatory data-sharing requirements. Where previous antitrust cases focused on behavioral remedies or financial penalties, this ruling requires Google to build technical infrastructure that shares click-through rates, search volume patterns, and anonymized query data with any European search engine that requests it. 

This scope is unprecedented. It gives competitors access to behavioral signals from Google’s roughly 90% market share across EU member states. Google must provide real-time access to aggregated search patterns, user interaction data, and ranking performance metrics through secure APIs. It would be the first peek into the real data that makes Google tick, which all of us in the SEO world have been trying to guess at for decades.

But there’s a catch, as there always is. 

Since this is taking place in the EU, the data Google shares needs to comply with GDPR’s differential privacy requirements, which add mathematical noise to the data to protect individual users.

This basically means that the data Google provides is some combination of polluted and diluted. Competitors who want to make use of the data will still be playing at a disadvantage.

The three data types Google has to provide

The proposed measures require Google to share three categories of search data:

  • Aggregated query volumes showing what Europeans search for and when
  • Click-through rates revealing which results users actually choose
  • Behavioral interaction data tracking how long users spend on different pages

All data must be anonymized and aggregated to protect individual privacy, but the granularity remains operationally useful. Competitors will receive the same behavioral signals that Google uses to refine its own algorithm, potentially breaking the feedback loop that has kept rivals perpetually behind.

Search engines and LLMs requesting access must receive trend data within 24 hours. This real-time access means European search engines could theoretically optimize for emerging query patterns as they develop, rather than discovering popular searches weeks after Google has already captured the traffic. But the 24-hour delay still gives Google a first-mover advantage in responding to breaking news or viral content.

Google keeps some key stuff though: proprietary ranking algorithms, individual user profiles, advertising revenue data, and the machine learning models that actually determine search result order all remain locked away.

DuckDuckGo and Bing will gain access to Google’s behavioral data

DuckDuckGo has been sitting at a pretty rough 0.71% market share for a while. Thanks to its focus on privacy it (ostensibly) doesn’t collect individual user data, which means it can’t anticipate user behavior in the same way Google does.

The EU mandate gives DuckDuckGo access to the same behavioral signals that Google uses to refine its algorithm, without needing to collect this data itself. For the first time, DuckDuckGo would be able to see which queries spike during breaking news, what seasonal patterns drive traffic, and which results users click versus ignore. 

Whether it chooses to use this is anyone’s guess, since individual user data they didn’t collect is still individual user data and by its nature not privacy-focused.

Bing stands to gain more strategically. Despite massive investment by Microsoft in search technology, Bing has struggled to validate whether their ranking experiments actually improve user satisfaction and has barely broken 5% market share (to become the world’s second-largest search engine. It’s crazy how dominant Google is). 

With access to Google’s click-through data, Bing can now test algorithm changes against proven user preferences rather than running blind optimization experiments. The shared data gives Microsoft a shortcut past years of trial-and-error refinement, potentially accelerating Bing’s algorithm development by eliminating guesswork about which results users find useful.

Even niche players like Ecosia could leverage the intelligence windfall to punch above their weight.

The bad news: That shared data might be worthless

Even if Google successfully builds this infrastructure required to share all this data in the ways the EU is proposing it, data center costs for processing and storing the shared intelligence would still land on any mid-sized search engines looking to make use of it. 

Plus, the anonymization requirements we’ve talked about strip away the granular user intent signals that actually drive algorithmic improvements. This ruling, even if enacted, might mean Google’s competitors would get the offer of expensive noise rather than actionable data.

Search winners are determined by distribution channels, not data

Distribution channels, not data insights, determine search market winners in practice. Google’s 71% Android market share means European users encounter Google Search as their default option before they even consider alternatives, while the company’s $15 billion annual payment to Apple ensures similar dominance on iOS devices. 

Even perfectly optimized search algorithms built from shared Google data can’t overcome the friction of users manually switching their default search engine.

Knowing what users search for doesn’t automatically translate into delivering better results than Google’s 25-year algorithmic head start. Microsoft, by way of Internet Explorer, controlled the majority of browser market share from 2000 to 2010. They got unprecedented access to user behavior patterns, trending queries, and click-through data. Despite this intelligence advantage and billions invested, Microsoft search has never achieved a significant market share against Google during.

Multi-engine SEO is still a premature investment

When we who work in SEO say “Search Engine Optimization,” what we mean is “Google Optimization.” It has over 90% of the global search market in a single algorithm. It simply isn’t worth the time to try to optimize for anything else.

We face a resource allocation dilemma that won’t resolve until European search engines demonstrate sustained user adoption beyond current single-digit market shares. Other search engines’ modest European (and global) presence means optimizing for anything other than Google currently delivers negligible traffic returns. Even if shared data helped competitors double their market share overnight, Google would still have a massive stranglehold.

The complexity of multi-engine SEO extends far beyond keyword research into entirely different ranking philosophies. DuckDuckGo prioritizes exact-match domains and traditional on-page signals that Google deprecated years ago, and Bing weights social media mentions more heavily than Google’s algorithm. Ecosia’s environmental focus means sustainability-related content receives algorithmic preference that doesn’t exist elsewhere. SEO teams would need to maintain separate content strategies, technical implementations, and measurement frameworks for each engine. 

Please don’t make me do that.

What happens next?

The deadline sits at July 27, 2026. That’s still in the future by the time this blog is published and is likely in the past by the time you’re reading it, but I’m going to put my predictions here so we can all laugh at me when I’m wrong.

  1. Google will likely appeal the ruling, potentially delaying implementation by 12-18 months.
  2. They’re going to do everything they can to technically meet the potential requirements, while obfuscating their data as much as possible so it’s useless to competitors.
  3. If the EU manages to hold Google to it, the company will spend a drop in their revenue bucket on infrastructure to deliver this legally required useless data.
  4. If EU data sharing demonstrates measurable increases in search competition by late 2026, I’d expect to see similar Digital Markets Act provisions in US antitrust legislation by 2027-2028.
  5. Google will maintain its massive search dominance anyway, by virtue of user habits and finding any and every loophole available to them.

The US Department of Justice’s Google monopolization case already references European regulatory precedents, suggesting American lawmakers view the EU as a testing ground for competition policy. But the fundamental challenge remains unchanged: Forcing Google to share data doesn’t automatically create the distribution channels, user habits, or algorithmic expertise competitors need to challenge a 25-year search monopoly.

Call me a cynic, but I think Google is going to stay on top until we see a massive shift in user behavior. Regulations won’t get us there. 

I’d love to be proven wrong.

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