Google’s aggressive push into generative AI for search has landed it in hot water with European regulators. A group of independent publishers has filed an antitrust complaint against Google with the European Commission, targeting the tech giant’s AI Overviews feature — reports Reuters.
AI Overviews, which Google first launched in May 2024 and expanded to Canadian users in October, are AI-generated summaries displayed at the top of search results, often above traditional website links. The feature recently started showing ads as well, adding another layer of controversy.
In the complaint, the Independent Publishers Alliance alleges that Google is abusing its dominance in search by misusing publisher content for AI Overviews. The group claims this practice has led to sharp declines in web traffic, readership, and revenue for news publishers. “Google’s core search engine service is misusing web content for Google’s AI Overviews in Google Search,” the complaint reads.
Critics argue that publishers have no meaningful way to opt out of their content being used for Google’s AI training or summaries — without also vanishing from search results entirely. The complaint further requests interim measures to prevent “irreparable harm” to publishers while the investigation proceeds.
This complaint follows similar antitrust concerns raised by The Movement for an Open Web and British non-profit Foxglove Legal, which also signed the filing. Notably, the three organizations have also filed a similar complaint with the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
Google, however, maintains that its search platform continues to send billions of clicks to websites daily. “New AI experiences in Search enable people to ask even more questions, which creates new opportunities for content and businesses to be discovered,” a company spokesperson said.
“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.”
Foxglove co-executive director Rosa Curling called AI Overviews an “existential threat” to independent news, urging the European Commission and other regulators across the globe to allow publications to opt out of their content being fed to the feature.
Earlier this year, Google expanded on AI Overviews with a new AI Mode for Search, further deepening its AI integration across platforms. But as scrutiny mounts, this may only be the beginning of legal headaches for the search giant.
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The Google AI results have been extremely wrong a few times when I look at them. So bad, that I automatically scroll past them and go to the first website result still.
According to their AI, my vehicle's recommended tire pressure was 110 psi. It's actually 35. It probably just skimmed some websites and since my car manufacturer makes some industrial equipment as well it picked a number from there.
Now imagine if someone who doesn't know anything about vehicles saw that and tried to put 110 into a medium-sized sedan tire.
Yup. They are definitely very wrong, very often and in ways that someone that doesn’t know the subject might not notice.
Hope they don’t get anyone killed.
These ai results are almost always wrong and in some cases I’ve seen them outright provide false information. One time it recommended I shop at Target…. Target hasn’t been in Canada for several years now.
I wonder if this is more a part of the general problem of Canada's cultural relationship with the US and the fact that Canadians consume and in engage in so many things of American origin, from news and entertainment to eCommerce. When I'm in other countries and search Google (which is regularly because I travel as part of my job), it generally shows me results from that country and its actually quite difficult to search Google as though I'm home in Canada. But when I'm in Canada, I always have to check to see whether the site is American or Canadian.
Perhaps this is another reason we should actually support our government in its fight for Canadian online media.
Oh no, the site was definitely Canadian. The ai just doesn’t bother verifying its response
Google, the once upon a time poster child for "don't be evil" now too busy powering Genocide in Palestine to bother about results accuracy