Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, is facing an antitrust complaint from a coalition of independent publishers in the European Union, which claims that the company’s AI Overviews are causing significant harm to their businesses. The complaint includes a request for interim measures to prevent what these publishers describe as irreparable damage, as reported by Reuters.
The AI Overviews in question are summaries generated by Google’s artificial intelligence that appear above traditional links to relevant websites in over 100 countries. The company began incorporating advertisements into these AI-generated summaries in May.
Google is heavily investing in AI technology as part of its search operations, but this has raised alarm among content providers, including various publishers who feel disadvantaged.
According to a document from the Independent Publishers Alliance dated June 30, the group has lodged a complaint with the European Commission, alleging that Google is misusing its dominance in the online search market.
The document states, “Google’s core search engine service is misusing web content for Google’s AI Overviews in Google Search, which have caused, and continue to cause, significant harm to publishers, including news publishers in terms of traffic, readership, and revenue loss.”
It further claims that Google places its AI Overviews at the top of its search results page, showcasing summaries generated from publisher content, which it alleges undermines the visibility of the original material created by publishers.
The complaint also notes, “Publishers using Google Search do not have the option to opt out from their material being utilized for Google’s AI large language model training and/or being crawled for summaries, without jeopardizing their visibility in Google’s general search results.”
The European Commission has chosen not to comment on the matter at this time.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has confirmed that it has received the complaint.
In response to the allegations, Google stated that it directs billions of clicks to websites daily. A spokesperson elaborated, “New AI experiences in Search enable people to ask even more questions, which creates new opportunities for content and businesses to be discovered.”
The Independent Publishers Alliance identifies itself as a nonprofit organization advocating for independent publishers, although it does not disclose the specific entities involved.
Additionally, the complaint counts among its supporters the Movement for an Open Web, a group that includes digital advertisers and publishers, as well as Foxglove Legal Community Interest Company, which advocates for fairness in the technology sector. Together, they stress the necessity of interim measures to safeguard competition and maintain access to news.
Google has argued that many claims regarding traffic generated from search are based on incomplete and biased data. A spokesperson asserted, “The reality is that sites can gain and lose traffic for a variety of reasons, including seasonal demand, user interests, and regular algorithm updates to Search.”
Rosa Curling, co-executive director of Foxglove, highlighted the precarious state faced by journalists and publishers, stressing, “Independent news faces an existential threat: Google’s AI Overviews.” She urged regulators, including the European Commission, to support independent journalism by allowing publishers the option to opt-out.
The three organizations have also submitted a similar complaint and request for an interim measure to the UK’s competition authority.
The complaints resonate with a lawsuit from a U.S. edtech company asserting that Google’s AI Overviews are diminishing demand for original content, thus affecting the ability of publishers to compete and leading to declines in their visitor numbers and subscriber counts.
© Thomson Reuters 2025
