Google facing EU antitrust complaint over AI overviews

A coalition of independent publishers has filed a formal complaint with the European Commission alleging that Google’s AI Overviews are damaging the digital publishing ecosystem by siphoning traffic and revenue away from original content creators.

According to a document dated June 30 and seen by Reuters, the complaint comes from the Independent Publishers Alliance, supported by The Movement for an Open Web and UK non-profit Foxglove Legal. It includes a request for urgent interim measures to prevent what they describe as “irreparable harm” to the sector.

At the heart of the complaint is Google’s AI Overviews – the generative summaries that now appear at the top of search results in over 100 countries. These summaries, powered by Google's large language models and often trained on publisher content, provide users with instant answers while pushing traditional links further down the results page.

“Google’s core search engine service is misusing web content for its AI Overviews,” the publishers wrote. “This has caused, and continues to cause, significant harm to publishers, including news publishers in the form of traffic, readership, and revenue loss.”

No way to opt out

The publishers argue that Google’s dominance in search effectively forces them to allow their content to be crawled and used in AI-generated summaries. Refusing participation means disappearing from traditional search results, a choice publishers say is no choice at all.

“Publishers using Google Search do not have the option to opt out from their material being ingested for Google's AI training or from being crawled for summaries, without losing their ability to appear in Google's general search results,” the complaint states.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) confirmed it has received a similar complaint and is reviewing it.

Google’s response

Google defended its AI Overviews feature, saying it enhances user experience and still drives enormous value to publishers.

“We send billions of clicks to websites every day,” a Google spokesperson said. “New AI experiences in Search enable people to ask even more questions, which creates new opportunities for content and businesses to be discovered.”

The company also pushed back on claims of declining traffic, saying such allegations are often based on “highly incomplete and skewed data” and that traffic trends depend on multiple variables, including seasonality and search algorithm updates.

Growing global pressure

The complaint in Europe follows a similar lawsuit filed in the United States by an edtech company, which claimed Google’s AI Overviews were undercutting original content creators and reducing site engagement.

Rosa Curling, co-executive director of Foxglove Legal, warned that AI-generated summaries could have devastating consequences for journalism.

“Independent news faces an existential threat: Google’s AI Overviews,” Curling said. “That’s why we’re urging the European Commission and other regulators around the world to take a stand and allow independent journalism to opt out.”