BRUSSELS, July 5 (V7N) – Google, the search engine giant owned by Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL.O), is facing a formal antitrust complaint in the European Union over its AI Overviews feature. The complaint, lodged by a group of independent digital publishers, accuses Google of unfairly leveraging AI-generated summaries to divert traffic away from original content sources, potentially causing irreversible damage to publishers' visibility and revenue.
 
According to a document reviewed by Reuters, the group has also requested interim measures from EU regulators to halt the deployment of AI Overviews until the issue is resolved.
 
Launched in over 100 countries, Google’s AI Overviews are machine-generated summaries that appear at the top of search results, often above traditional hyperlinks. The summaries provide quick answers to user queries and reduce the need for users to click through to the source websites. Critics argue that this disrupts the traditional traffic flow to content publishers and severely undermines their digital business models.
 
In May, Google began inserting advertisements into these AI Overviews, raising further concern among publishers that their content is being used to generate ad revenue without adequate compensation or user redirection to original sources.
 
The complainants argue that the AI Overviews significantly reduce click-through rates to independent sites, causing both financial losses and long-term damage to the diversity of information available online. They assert that the practice violates core principles of competition law in the European Union, particularly around self-preferencing and market dominance.
 
The European Commission has not yet issued a public statement on the matter, but it has previously launched investigations into Google’s advertising, search, and shopping services for similar concerns around anticompetitive practices. The request for interim measures suggests the publishers are seeking immediate regulatory action to suspend the feature pending a full investigation.
 
This case marks yet another chapter in the EU’s broader scrutiny of Big Tech, especially as generative AI becomes more integrated into core digital services. Regulators are under pressure to ensure innovation in artificial intelligence does not come at the cost of fair competition and the sustainability of smaller content providers.
 
Google has not publicly responded to the complaint as of press time.
 
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