The European Commission has opened a sweeping antitrust investigation into Google, focusing on whether the tech giant is using online content from publishers and YouTube creators to train its artificial intelligence (AI) systems without proper consent or adequate compensation.
This marks the EU’s second probe into Google within a month, reflecting growing global concerns over Big Tech’s influence in the fast-emerging AI landscape. The move is also likely to heighten tensions with the United States, which has criticized recent EU regulations targeting Silicon Valley companies.
EU competition chief Teresa Ribera said the Commission is examining whether Google is abusing its dominance in online search by imposing “unfair trading conditions” on publishers. The concern centers on Google’s AI Overviews — AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of search results in more than 100 countries.
Regulators fear that Google may be scraping publisher content to generate these summaries without giving content creators the right to refuse or ensuring fair payment. Similar concerns apply to the use of user-uploaded YouTube videos for AI training.
Ribera emphasized the importance of protecting those who produce original content, stating:
“A healthy information ecosystem depends on publishers having the resources to produce quality content. We will not allow gatekeepers to dictate those choices.”
Google dismissed the complaint submitted earlier by independent publishers, calling the allegations harmful to AI innovation.
A company spokesperson said:
“This complaint risks stifling innovation in a market that is more competitive than ever.”
However, publisher groups argue that Google has unfairly leveraged its dominance. Lawyer Tim Cowen, advising several complainant groups, accused Google of breaking the long-standing internet model where publishers willingly allowed indexing in exchange for visibility.
He said Google now prioritizes its own AI services — particularly Gemini — over traditional search results:
“Gemini is Search’s evil twin.”
The probe will also examine Google’s spam policies, which publishers claim penalize them unfairly. If Google is found to have violated EU antitrust laws, it could face penalties of up to 10% of its global annual revenue.
This investigation follows a separate EU inquiry launched last week into Meta’s alleged attempts to block AI rivals from WhatsApp, signaling increasing regulatory pressure on major technology firms.
