EU Files Antitrust Complaint Against Google's AI Overview Feature

Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, is facing an antitrust complaint from the European Union regarding its "AI Overview" feature. The complaint, filed on June 30, alleges that Google is abusing its dominant position in the online search market by using AI-generated summaries to divert user traffic away from independent publishers, resulting in a loss of traffic, readership, and advertising revenue for these publishers.

The AI Overview feature, which has been available in over 100 countries since May of last year, displays AI-generated summaries at the top of search results and includes advertisements. Publishers argue that this feature directly extracts their original content to create summaries without providing an opt-out mechanism. If publishers refuse to have their content used by the AI, their websites risk losing visibility in Google's general search results. The complaint emphasizes that this mandatory participation model poses an existential threat to news organizations and calls for regulatory intervention to prevent further harm.

The European Commission has not commented on the matter, but the UK's Competition and Markets Authority has confirmed receipt of the complaint. Google has responded by stating that its search services drive billions of clicks to websites daily. The company attributes fluctuations in traffic to various factors such as seasonal demand, user preferences, and algorithm updates, rather than a single feature change. Google's spokesperson also noted that the AI search experience expands the scenarios in which users can ask questions, providing content creators with new exposure opportunities.

The complaint has garnered support from the Open Network Movement, which includes digital advertisers and publishers, as well as the UK-based non-profit organization Foxglove Legal Center. Foxglove's co-executive director, Rosa Collins, has expressed concern about the "existential threat" posed by Google's AI summaries to independent journalism, urging global regulators to establish content opt-out mechanisms. This complaint is also linked to a lawsuit filed by an American educational technology company, which alleges that Google's AI summaries reduce the demand for original content, leading to a loss of subscribers.

Currently, the complainants have submitted similar requests to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority. This regulatory battle, spanning both European and American markets, highlights the deeper conflicts arising from the integration of AI technology into search services. The balance between innovation and content rights protection has become a new focus for global antitrust regulators.