Alphabet’s Google is facing an antitrust complaint from a coalition of independent publishers in the European Union concerning its AI Overviews feature. The group has also requested an interim measure to prevent what they claim could cause lasting harm, as indicated in a document reviewed by Reuters.
Google’s AI Overviews provide AI-generated summaries that appear above standard hyperlinks to relevant websites, reaching users in over 100 countries. The company implemented advertisements within these Overviews last May.
This significant shift towards incorporating AI in its search engine has raised alarms among various content providers, including publishers.
A complaint submitted to the European Commission by the Independent Publishers Alliance, dated June 30, contends that Google is misusing its dominant position in the online search market.
The document claims that “Google’s core search engine service is misusing web content for its AI Overviews in Google Search, which have caused, and continue to cause, significant harm to publishers, including news organizations in the form of traffic, readership, and revenue loss.”
It further alleges that Google’s AI Overviews are given a prominent position at the top of search results, showcasing summaries generated from publisher materials in a way that undermines the visibility of original content from these publishers.
According to the complaint, publishers using Google Search do not have the option to prevent their content from being used to train Google’s AI models without jeopardizing their appearance in Google’s general search results.
The European Commission has refrained from commenting on the matter.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has acknowledged receipt of the complaint.
In response, Google asserted that it generates billions of clicks to various websites each day.
A spokesperson for Google stated, “New AI experiences in Search allow individuals to ask even more questions, creating new opportunities for content and businesses to be discovered.”
The Independent Publishers Alliance describes itself as a nonprofit community that advocates for independent publishers, though it does not disclose specific members.
Other organizations, including the Movement for an Open Web, which comprises digital advertisers and publishers, along with the UK-based nonprofit Foxglove Legal Community Interest Company, have also endorsed the complaint. These groups emphasize the need for interim measures to protect competition and ensure access to news.
Google countered claims about its impact on traffic from search, stating that many are based on incomplete and biased data. “The reality is that sites can experience fluctuations in traffic due to various factors, including seasonal trends, user interests, and regular algorithm updates to Search,” the spokesperson noted.
Rosa Curling, co-executive director of Foxglove, highlighted the precarious situation facing journalists and publishers. “Independent news faces an existential threat due to Google’s AI Overviews,” she explained to Reuters.
With this complaint, Curling expressed the coalition’s hope that the European Commission and regulators worldwide would intervene, allowing independent journalism to opt out of the AI’s data pool.
The three groups have also submitted a similar complaint and request for an interim measure to the UK competition authority.
These complaints resonate with a lawsuit filed by a U.S. edtech company, which argues that Google’s AI Overviews are diminishing demand for original content and hindering publishers’ competitive abilities, leading to declines in visitor traffic and subscriber numbers.
© Thomson Reuters 2025
