Ius Omnibus has participated in the European Commission's public consultation regarding Case DMA.100209-SP-Alphabet. In late January, the European Commission opened a non-compliance proceeding against Google under Article 6(11) DMA, which requires Google to share search data with third-party search engine providers to foster contestability and fairness. In April, the Commission published its Preliminary Findings and opened a public consultation ahead of its final decision, due by 27 July. Online search is the gateway to information for millions. Alphabet is currently the dominant search engine and the only gatekeeper for this core platform service, thereby exerting significant control over access to information. Ius Omnibus's contribution aligns with the Commission's proposal to introduce a "parity principle". However, from the standpoint of a consumer association, Ius Omnibus has also raised the following concerns:
The Crawl-Prioritization Gap: Google knows which pages among the billions online are worth visiting because its click data tells it exactly that. Competitors lack access to these signals, meaning rival search engines work from a structurally incomplete catalog of the web. Ius Omnibus calls on the Commission to extend the data-sharing obligation to crawl-prioritization signals, so that competitors can build a web index on equal footing with Google.
The Disproportionate Burden of Audit Requirements on Beneficiaries: The Commission's proposal requires companies to commission expensive independent audit reports to access Google's search data, both at the outset and annually thereafter. The operators most likely to be deterred are precisely those whose market entry would benefit consumers the most: privacy-focused search engines, tools designed for vulnerable users, and search services in minority languages. Ius Omnibus calls on the Commission to recalibrate these requirements so that access is not made contingent on costs that bear no relation to the actual risks involved.
The Need for Parity in Artificial Intelligence Search Outputs: AI-generated search results already account for over 4% of the market and are projected to exceed 10% by 2027. If competitors cannot access data about how Google presents and ranks these results, they will be unable to develop comparable features, leaving users with no practical alternative. Ius Omnibus calls on the Commission to confirm explicitly that the data-sharing obligation fully covers AI outputs.
Ius Omnibus has called for proactive oversight to ensure that Alphabet shares information transparently and does not use pricing or technical hurdles to delay competition.
Read our full contribution here.