Google Faces EU Antitrust Complaint Over AI Overviews

A coalition of independent publishers, led by the Independent Publishers Alliance, has filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission against Google, focusing on the company’s AI Overviews feature. The complaint, submitted on June 30, 2025, accuses Google of leveraging its dominant position in online search by using AI-generated summaries that incorporate publisher content without permission or compensation.

Publishers argue that Google’s AI Overviews display their content at the top of search results, pushing sources aside and reducing traffic to their websites. According to the complaint, publishers are unable to opt out of their material being used for AI training or summaries unless they also remove themselves from general search listings. Data from Similarweb, cited by the publishers, shows that the percentage of news-related searches ending without a click-through to external sites has jumped from 56% to nearly 69% since the rollout of AI Overviews. Additionally, organic traffic to news sites dropped from a high of 2.3 billion monthly visits in mid-2024 to less than 1.7 billion by May 2025.

Since May 2024, Google has started including advertisements within AI Overviews, further monetizing the feature. This move has raised concerns among publishers about lost advertising revenue and reduced visibility for original reporting.

The complaint is backed by the Movement for an Open Web and the UK-based nonprofit Foxglove Legal. Rosa Curling, co-executive director at Foxglove, called the situation “an existential threat” to independent news and urged regulators to allow publishers to opt out of AI Overviews without losing their presence in search results.

Google responds that AI Overviews “create new opportunities for content and businesses to be discovered,” and the company claims to send billions of clicks to websites every day. Google also argues that fluctuations in web traffic can be caused by various factors, including seasonal demand and algorithm changes, and describes the claims of harm as being based on “incomplete and skewed data.” Hema Budaraju, Google’s senior director of product management for Search, added that users who click through from AI Overviews tend to spend more time on destination sites.

The European Commission has not yet commented on the complaint, but the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has acknowledged receipt of a similar filing. This complaint comes as the EU intensifies enforcement of the Digital Markets Act, which aims to limit the market power of major tech companies. The move also echoes a recent lawsuit in the U.S. by an edtech company, which alleged that AI Overviews hurt their visibility and subscriber base.

Publishers have requested interim measures to prevent what they describe as “irreparable harm” while the investigation is ongoing. If granted, these measures could temporarily restrict Google’s use of AI Overviews in the EU, potentially shaping how AI is integrated into search on a global scale.