Google’s “AI Overviews” feature in search results has faced a competition complaint in the European Union. A group representing independent publishers has filed a formal application with the European Commission, stating that the practice seriously undermines the visibility and revenues of digital content producers.

The European Union is investigating Google AI Overviews

The complaint alleges that Google abuses its market dominance in the search engine and uses publishers’ content in AI-powered summaries without their permission. The publishers claim that this situation reduces direct access to original content in particular, and that users are content with only the short summaries provided by Google instead of being directed to their websites. Google’s placement of these summaries at the top of search results leads to fewer clicks on original sources.

Publishers also state that if they want to prevent their content from being crawled by AI and used in summaries, they also face the risk of being excluded from the overall rankings in Google search results. It is alleged that this situation acts as a pressure tool on content producers and harms competition.

A Google spokesperson made a statement on the subject, stating that the search engine directs billions of clicks to websites every day. The statement claimed that the new AI-based search experiences encourage users to ask more questions, which allows content creators and businesses to be discovered more.

The European Commission has not commented on the complaint at this stage. However, it is stated that the issue is being monitored in terms of competition law. So what do you think about this issue? You can share your views with us in the comments section below.