Google’s controversial AI-generated summaries — which have been blamed for crushing the visitors of US information websites — have drawn an antitrust grievance within the European Union from a gaggle of impartial publishers.
The grievance by the Impartial Publishers Alliance accuses the Sundar Pichai-led Massive Tech large of abusing its dominant place in on-line search by selling its personal AI-generated summaries over hyperlinks to authentic content material.
The submitting, submitted on June 30, requests that the European Fee impose interim measures to forestall what it describes as “irreparable harm” to publishers.
“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 the form of traffic, readership and revenue loss,” the grievance alleges.
The grievance comes as damning knowledge revealed that AI Overviews have resulted in 37 of the highest 50 US information domains struggling year-over-year visitors declines since its launch in Could 2024, in accordance with digital intelligence agency SimilarWeb.
A report by SimilarWeb additionally discovered that the AI summaries have led to a big improve within the frequency of “zero clicks” to go looking queries.
The proportion of internet searches associated to information that finish with out a click on to a information web site jumped to 69% in Could 2025 from 56% for a similar month final 12 months, SimilarWeb discovered.
A spokesperson for the Competitors and Markets Authority, the EU’s antitrust company, confirmed to The Publish that it obtained the grievance.
“Last week, we proposed to designate Google with strategic market status in search and search advertising. If designated, this would allow us to introduce targeted measured to address specific aspects of how Google operates search services in the UK,” the rep advised The Publish on Friday.
AI Overviews are summaries generated utilizing Google’s synthetic intelligence fashions and are displayed on the prime of common search outcomes. The function is on the market in additional than 100 nations. Google started incorporating ads into AI Overviews this previous Could.
The publishers allege that Google’s follow of displaying its personal summaries above hyperlinks disadvantages authentic content material and is made worse by the shortage of management publishers have over how their materials is used.
“Publishers using Google Search do not have the option to opt out from their material being ingested for Google’s AI large language model training and/or from being crawled for summaries, without losing their ability to appear in Google’s general search results page,” the grievance alleges.
The Motion for an Open Internet, whose members embody digital advertisers and publishers, and British nonprofit Foxglove Authorized Group Curiosity Firm are additionally signatories to the grievance.
“In short, AI Overviews are theft from the publishing industry,” Tim Cowen, co-founder of Motion for an Open Internet, advised The Publish.
“They steal publishers’ content and then use that to steal their traffic before it reaches their site. That’s unfair and a clear breach of copyright principles.”
Cowen added that he needs publishers “to have the ability to opt out of their content being harvested for AI Overviews without fear of being punished in search results.”
“In the longer term we want to see a fair economic and regulatory model that rewards publishers for the value of their works,” he mentioned.
The three organizations are in search of regulatory intervention to handle what they are saying is an pressing risk to competitors and entry to information.
Foxglove co-executive director Rosa Curling mentioned the results of AI Overviews for information publishers are extreme.
“Independent news faces an existential threat: Google’s AI Overviews,” Foxglove co-executive director Rosa Curling mentioned.
“That’s why with this complaint, Foxglove and our partners are urging the European Commission, along with other regulators around the world, to take a stand and allow independent journalism to opt out.”
A Google spokesperson defended the AI Overviews function and disputed the characterization of its influence on publishers.
“New AI experiences in Search enable people to ask even more questions, which creates new opportunities for content and businesses to be discovered,” the spokesperson advised Reuters.
Google added that the corporate sends billions of clicks to web sites every day and that visitors fluctuations might be influenced by many elements.
“The reality is that sites can gain and lose traffic for a variety of reasons, including seasonal demand, interests of users, and regular algorithmic updates to Search,” the spokesperson mentioned.
The claims within the EU grievance echo an analogous argument made in a lawsuit filed in the USA by an training know-how firm, which alleges that Google’s AI Overviews are eroding demand for authentic content material and damaging the aggressive skill of publishers, leading to declines in each visitors and subscriptions.
Google has confronted a number of antitrust investigations on either side of the Atlantic Ocean in recent times.
The tech large is interesting a $4.7 billion fantastic imposed by the European Fee for allegedly abusing its dominance with the Android working system. Final month, an advisor to the EU’s prime court docket really helpful the fantastic be upheld.
The European Fee can be persevering with investigations into Google’s conduct in digital promoting and search, with potential for additional regulatory motion.
In the USA, a federal choose dominated in August 2024 that Google violated antitrust legislation by sustaining monopolies usually search and search promoting, citing unique offers reminiscent of these with Apple.
A verdict after a trial on the treatment part — which might embody breaking apart Google — is anticipated subsequent month.
In a separate ruling in April 2025, one other choose discovered Google had illegally monopolized internet advertising markets by controlling each the purchase and promote sides of the advert change.
With Publish Wires
