Alphabet’s Google is under a European Union antitrust investigation over its use of online content from publishers and YouTube videos to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models, the European Commission announced Tuesday.
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This marks the EU’s second investigation into Google within a month, highlighting growing concerns over Big Tech’s dominance in emerging AI technologies that could potentially disadvantage competitors.
EU regulators said they are particularly concerned that Google may be using publishers’ content for AI-generated summaries, known as AI Overviews, without offering adequate compensation or the ability to opt out. The same concerns apply to the use of user-uploaded YouTube videos.
“Google may be abusing its dominant position as a search engine to impose unfair trading conditions on publishers by using their online content to provide its own AI-powered services,” said EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera. She added, “A healthy information ecosystem depends on publishers having the resources to produce quality content. We will not allow gatekeepers to dictate those choices.”
The probe follows a complaint filed in July by independent publishers, which Google has rejected, arguing the claim “risks stifling innovation in a market that is more competitive than ever.” A Google spokesperson added, “Europeans deserve to benefit from the latest technologies, and we will continue to work closely with the news and creative industries as they transition to the AI era.”
Groups such as the Independent Publishers Alliance, Movement for an Open Web, and British non-profit Foxglove have criticized Google, alleging that the company is exploiting website content to train its AI models, including Gemini. Tim Cowen, a lawyer advising the groups, said, “Google has broken the bargain that underpins the internet… Now it puts its AiO, Gemini, first and adds insult to injury by exploiting website content to train Gemini. Gemini is Search’s evil twin.”
AI Overviews are summaries generated by AI that appear above traditional hyperlinks in search results and are now shown in over 100 countries. Google began adding advertisements to these summaries last May.
In addition, Google’s spam policies are under EU scrutiny, with potential fines of up to 10% of its global annual revenue if the company is found in breach of antitrust regulations.
The investigation comes amid broader regulatory attention on tech giants, including last week’s European Commission probe into Meta’s plans to block AI rivals from its WhatsApp messaging platform.
