A coalition of independent publishers has filed a formal antitrust complaint with the European Commission against Google, alleging the tech giant’s new “AI Overviews” feature abuses its market dominance and siphons critical traffic and revenue from their businesses.
The Heart of the Complaint
At the center of the dispute are Google’s AI-generated summaries, which appear at the very top of search results in over 100 countries. According to a document filed by the Independent Publishers Alliance, these summaries misuse their original content to provide answers directly on the search page.
The complaint argues this practice causes “significant harm to publishers… in the form of traffic, readership and revenue loss,” as users no longer need to click through to the original articles. The publishers are urging the EU to take immediate “interim measures” to prevent what they describe as irreparable damage.
A Growing Chorus of Concern
This European complaint echoes a similar legal battle in the United States, where edtech company Chegg sued Google over the same issue. Chegg claims that AI Overviews are eroding demand for original content and undermining their ability to compete, leading to a measurable drop in visitors and subscribers.
In response, a Google spokesperson stated that the company believes its new AI features create fresh opportunities for discovery. “New AI experiences in Search enable people to ask even more questions,” the spokesperson said, “which creates new opportunities for content and businesses to be discovered.”
As regulators begin to examine the complaint, the outcome could set a major precedent for how artificial intelligence and online content coexist, defining the future of digital publishing in the AI era.
