Google has formally appealed to the European Union to stop the European Commission's Digital Markets Act mandate requiring it to share search history data with competitors, according to a September 29, 2026 recap of search forum activity. "We're appealing decisions that will force us to share people's private search history without sufficient anonymization and weaken vital security protections on Android," Google said in a statement.

The appeal is a confirmed company action. The context around it comes from a new interview in which Pietro Valetto spoke with Nick Fox, Google's Senior Vice President of Knowledge & Information. Fox said the DMA-driven changes — which Google previously described as forcing the biggest reduction in search quality in its 28-year history — made him feel "terrible" and "sad" for European searchers. Those characterizations are Fox's own, not an independent assessment of ranking quality in the EU.

AI Mode monitoring goes global

In a confirmed rollout, Google is extending monitoring capabilities in AI Mode in Google Search to all users worldwide. When Google first announced the feature, only Ultra and Pro paid subscribers had access. The expansion removes the paywall, which matters for publishers tracking how their content surfaces in AI Mode conversations and for SEOs monitoring brand mentions across conversational queries.

AI Overviews citation cards move again — this time to the bottom

Google is testing citation cards at the bottom of AI Overview responses on desktop, rather than in their familiar position on the right side. This is a test, not a confirmed launch. It is also not new: Google tested similar variations at least twice before, once in March 2026 and before that in September 2025. The repeated testing suggests sustained internal debate over where attribution should live, and publishers watching referral traffic from AI Overviews should note that moving citations below the fold historically reduces click-through on source links.

Local search: interface tests and an ocean-bound bug

Two developments affect local search, one deliberate and one not.

Google is testing two rows of action buttons on local panels in mobile search. The company has previously tested a "more" plus-sign to load additional buttons and a scrollable carousel of buttons; the two-row layout is the latest variant. For local businesses, more visible action buttons could shift call, direction and booking behavior on mobile.

The accidental change is a Google Maps and Google Business Profiles bug that places some businesses' map pins in the middle of the ocean. Reports indicate the issue affects some service-area businesses that do not list their address publicly on their local listings. Google has not confirmed a fix timeline.

On the policy side, Google has added a new policy to the Google Business Profiles policies document named "Misuse of support channels." The addition signals tighter enforcement around how businesses interact with Google support, though Google has not detailed specific enforcement actions.

What practitioners are flagging

Several thread-level observations from practitioners, none confirmed by Google, round out the day:

• Google Search Advocate John Mueller warned on LinkedIn about "domain registered/reserved/for sale" pages. If such pages are indexable, they can be recognized as a group and mutually canonicalized because they all look the same.
• SEO Lily Ray flagged two different subfolders, one blue and one orange, on a major publicly traded brand website, both carrying highly templated, programmatically scaled content — the same site celebrated as a major client of an AI content scaling tool.
• A coordinated fake review attack case, and how to fix review bombing, drew discussion on the Local Search Forum.

Signals from outside Google

Tool and analytics data circulating in the forums points to shifts in the AI ecosystem. David Konitzny reported on LinkedIn that YouTube has lost 91% of its share of ChatGPT citations compared to August. Similarweb reported that Claude's sign-up flow drew 21.4 million visits from 12.0 million unique users in August 2026, up 504% and 419% year over year, ahead of an expected Anthropic IPO.

Elsewhere in the AI sector: Google is officially shutting down Gemini Gems, with the Gemini app replacing Gems with skills in November, per 9To5Google and Android Authority; Anthropic introduced Claude Sonnet 5.5, which reaches #2 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index; and the Wall Street Journal reports OpenAI scrapped the release of a new AI model over safety concerns.

What to monitor

Watch for the EU General Court's handling of Google's DMA appeal, since the outcome determines whether search history sharing with competitors proceeds and whether Android security changes follow. Track the AI Mode monitoring rollout for effects on AI-driven referral visibility, and recheck AI Overview citation placement — a third round of testing increases the odds that a bottom-positioned layout ships for good.