Google’s AI Overviews hit with UK legal challenge over news content use
The Movement For An Open Web (MOW) and partners filed a legal complaint against Google, accusing it of harming UK news publishers. The core issue: Google’s AI Overviews pull from news articles to create summaries and answer grounding without letting publishers opt out—unless they also quit search results entirely.
MOW, Foxglove, and the Alliance want the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to force Google to allow publishers to exclude their work from AI summaries but stay searchable. This opt-out approach is already proposed by US and South African regulators. 
Foxglove called for immediate interim measures to stop Google’s alleged misuse, warning the UK risks falling behind other countries protecting news from AI scraping.
“Last week, the CMA announced plans to consult on how to make Google search fairer, including providing ‘more control and transparency for publishers over how their content collected for search is used, including in AI-generated responses.’ However, the complaint from Foxglove, the Alliance and MOW warns that news organisations are already being harmed in the UK and action is needed immediately.
In particular, publishers urgently need the ability to opt out of Google’s AI summaries without being removed from search altogether. This is a measure that has already been proposed by other leading regulators, including the US Department of Justice and the South African Competition Commission. Foxglove is warning that without immediate action, the UK – and its news industry – risks being left behind, while other states take steps to protect independent news from Google.
Foxglove is therefore seeking interim measures to prevent Google misusing publisher content pending the outcome of the CMA’s more detailed review.”
Reuters also reports a separate EU complaint filed in Brussels targeting the same problem.
“Google’s core search engine service is 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.”
Publishers and SEOs continue to slam Google for sending fewer clicks despite Google’s claims of rising traffic. The company hasn’t shown any signs it will ease up on replacing traditional links with AI-generated answers.
The CMA and EU regulators now have a mess on their hands as Google’s AI Overviews stir fresh legal fire over content scraping and fairness in search.
