The order came from the European Commission, the EU’s competition watchdog, under a law called the Digital Markets Act. Passed in 2022, the DMA singles out a handful of “gatekeepers,” companies so big they control how everyone else reaches customers online, and forces them to play fairer. Google, Apple and Meta all made that list back in 2023.

This latest move has two parts. First, Android must open up to rival AI assistants, like ChatGPT or Claude, giving them the same backstage access Google’s own Gemini assistant enjoys, such as responding to a wake word, understanding what’s on your screen, and running quietly in the background. Eleven such features must be unlocked, mostly by August 2027.

Second, and more strikingly, Google must start sharing anonymised data from Google Search with rival search engines and AI chatbots, beginning January 2027. Think of it as sharing the recipe, not the ingredients. Not people’s actual searches, but scrubbed, aggregated patterns showing what people search for, click on, and find useful. That’s the raw material Google has spent 25 years refining to make its results so good. Regulators want competitors to have a shot at the same head start.

Why go this far? Because Brussels believes Google’s dominance has become nearly impossible to challenge without help. No matter how good a rival search engine or AI assistant is, it can’t out-improve a system built on decades of data it’s never been allowed to see.

Google isn’t happy. In a company statement, its top policy executive, Kent Walker, warned the ruling could expose “Europeans’ private searches… to unfamiliar companies” and threaten both business secrets and national security. Google is expected to appeal, though under EU rules, it has to start complying regardless while any appeal plays out.

The stakes for dragging its feet are enormous. Fines could reach up to 10% of Google’s entire global revenue, rising to 20% for repeat offences, plus daily penalties if it stalls. This isn’t Google’s first brush with Brussels, either. The company has already paid out more than 10 billion euro in EU fines since 2017 for various antitrust violations, and a separate, possibly record-breaking fine over Google favouring its own shopping and travel listings is reportedly in the pipeline.

Not everyone thinks this will work as intended. Critics point out that when Apple faced similar EU pressure, it simply held back some AI features from European iPhones rather than open them up, and something similar could happen here. There’s also irony in the timing. In the AI assistant race, Google is currently the underdog to ChatGPT, so forcing it to share its playbook may end up helping OpenAI and Microsoft’s Bing more than any scrappy European startup.

Still, for anyone watching how governments are trying to rein in “Big Tech,” this is a landmark moment. It’s one of the most direct attempts yet by regulators to reach inside a tech giant’s core products, its operating system and its search engine, and rewire how they work, rather than just fining the company after the fact.

The post Brussels tells Google to open up Android, share its search secrets appeared first on International Finance.

A company representative stated that the team “worked quickly” to fix the issue and that operations were again back to normal.

“We’re aware of a software update issue that occurred late this afternoon Pacific Time and briefly affected the availability of Google search and Google Maps. We apologise for the inconvenience. We worked to quickly address the issue and our services are now back online,” the tech giant said.

Many technology platforms promptly reported the problem. Users of Google Explorer, the biggest search engine in the world, began reporting issues with it at 2.12 AM BST, according to the real-time website Downdetector.

There were 4,113 verified reports of Google outages as of 11:38 AM.

Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Images, according to users, also faced issues. Both depend on the Google search engine to function.

At least 1,338 servers in more than 40 countries, that comprise the United States, Australia, South Africa, Kenya, Israel, parts of South America, Europe, and Asia, including China and Japan, were affected by Google outages, according to network intelligence company ThousandEyes Inc.

Before a second blip occurred at around 12 PM, the initial disruption reported on ThousandEyes lasted roughly 34 minutes. It took about seven minutes to fix and only affected a small number of servers.

Users encountered a 502 or 500 error when attempting to use the Google search engine.

“The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request. Please try again in 30 seconds,” one error page read.

Twitter users tweeted their confusion and switched to alternative search engines like Bing and DuckDuckGo to browse the web.

Despite the steady growth of Bing and DuckDuckGo, Google is still the most frequented website on the internet, garnering more than 80 billion visitors per month, although exact traffic statistics are not disclosed.

The post Google software upgrade was the cause for outage in 40 countries appeared first on International Finance.

This is a very significant step for those who decide to permanently exit any Google usage and move on to another server.

The facility can save user’s Google calendar, create a backup of Google photos or draw a copy of all data in Gmail. It is even possible to retain a reminder of what Google knows based on user history.

According to CNBC, the steps to download data are simple. Users can go to http://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout and follow the instructions listed.

Once the instructions are complete, Google will extract all user data stored across its products and services, and an email will be sent with an alert and notification link. The data will be then be saved on cloud storage services.

The post Google now allows you to archive user data appeared first on International Finance.