Google is facing an antitrust complaint from the Independent Publishers Alliance over its AI Overviews feature in Google Search.
The group says Google is “misusing web content” for its AI summaries, causing big drops in traffic, readers, and revenue for news publishers. They charge publishers don’t have a choice: it’s either let Google use their content or vanish from search results.
The AI Overviews launched over a year ago, giving quick, AI-generated answers at the top of some results. But publishers say this shortcut is hurting their businesses by cutting clicks to their sites. 
Google pushed back, telling Reuters the new AI Search experiences help users ask more questions and can open new chances for sites to get discovered. The company also insisted web traffic shifts can happen for many reasons, and claims against them often use incomplete data.
Google’s AI Overviews keep expanding despite the backlash.
Independent Publishers Alliance stated
“misusing web content for Google’s AI Overviews in Google Search, which have caused, and continue to cause, significant harm to publishers, including news publishers in the form of traffic, readership and revenue loss.”
The complaint is now with the European Commission.
