Google, part of the Alphabet group, was on Tuesday the target of a formal complaint over anti-competitive practices lodged with the European Union by the European Publishers Council (EPC). At issue are the summaries generated by artificial intelligence, known as AI Overviews, whose use could strengthen an investigation already under way in Brussels.
Competitors in the technology sector have warned that the dominance of the big platforms in new technologies could push other players out of the market, while publishers accuse the digital giants of using their journalistic content without any financial compensation.
“This is about stopping a dominant gatekeeper that uses its market power to appropriate publishers' content without consent, without fair payment and without offering any realistic way of protecting journalism”, said Christian Van Thillo, president of the EPC, in a statement.
According to him, “AI Overviews and AI Mode fundamentally undermine the economic pact that has sustained the open web”.
Google reacted immediately to the accusations. A company spokesperson described them as “inaccurate” and said they represent “an attempt to stop useful new AI features that Europeans want”. He added that the company designs these tools “to highlight quality content on the web” and provides “simple controls” for publishers to manage their content.
The tech company admits it is reviewing its technical mechanisms to allow sites to opt out of generative AI features in search. Publishers, however, maintain that this option offers no effective protection, since opting out could result in a significant loss of visibility in search results.
The EPC argues that Google uses the control it exerts over online search to guarantee free access to editorial content, in line with a concern already voiced by European competition authorities.
In the statement that marked the start of the investigation, in December, the European Commission said that Google may be abusing its dominant position as a search engine by imposing unfair commercial terms on publishers.
