Alphabet's company, is facing an antitrust complaint by a group of independent publishers in the European Union over its AI Overviews feature. According to a document seen by Reuters, these publishers have also sought interim measures from the European Commission to protect them from alleged irreparable damages.

Let us tell you that Google's AI overviews are AI-generated summaries that appear above traditional hyperlinks and are shown to users in more than 100 countries. Google started showing ads in these overviews from May 2024. In a complaint filed on June 30, the Independent Publishers Alliance has told the European Commission that Google is abusing its market power in its online search service.

"Google is misusing web content through its core search engine service to create AI overviews, causing publishers, especially news publishers, to lose a lot of traffic, readers, and revenue," the complaint states. The complaint also alleges that Google displays its AI overviews on top of normal search results, causing harm to publishers' original content.

"Publishers who use Google Search do not have the option to prevent their content from being used to train Google's AI models or create summaries. If they do so, their content may stop appearing in search results," the document states. The European Commission has declined to comment on the matter, while the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) confirmed receipt of the complaint.

Google says it sends billions of clicks to websites every day. A Google spokesperson said, “New AI experiences in Search allow people to ask more questions, which creates new opportunities for content and businesses to be discovered.”

The Independent Publishers Alliance, which describes itself as a non-profit organization that advocates for the interests of independent publishers, has not disclosed the names of those publishers. The complaint is also supported by The Movement for an Open Web, Foxglove Legal (a British non-profit organization) and digital advertisers and publishers. These organizations have also demanded interim steps to prevent serious and irreparable harm to competition and to ensure equal access to news.

Disclaimer: This content has been sourced and edited from Amar Ujala. While we have made modifications for clarity and presentation, the original content belongs to its respective authors and website. We do not claim ownership of the content.