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A coalition of independent publishers has filed an antitrust complaint against Google with the European Commission, accusing the tech giant of favoring its AI-generated summaries in search results and harming the visibility of original journalism.
The Independent Publishers Alliance submitted the complaint on June 30 and is calling for urgent regulatory action to prevent what it describes as lasting damage to publishers.
The group claims that Google’s AI Overviews, which appear at the top of search pages, have significantly reduced web traffic, audience reach, and ad revenue for publishers.
By offering instant summaries, the feature discourages users from clicking through to original content and it was the content of publishers that Big Tech companies like Google used to train its AI models on in the first place.
The share of news-related searches ending without a single click rose to 69 percent in May 2025, compared with 56 percent a year earlier; according to SimilarWeb.
The EU’s Competition and Markets Authority acknowledged receiving the complaint.
A spokesperson said that the EU is already working to address Google’s dominance in search and advertising.
“Last week, we proposed to designate Google with strategic market status in search and search advertising. If designated, this would allow us to introduce targeted measures to address specific aspects of how Google operates search services in the UK,” the official said to Reuters.
Google’s AI Overviews are active in more than 100 countries, and as of May 2025, ads are now included in these summaries.
The complaint is supported by the Movement for an Open Web and Foxglove Legal, a UK nonprofit.
Google rejected the claims and defended its AI-powered search features. A spokesperson said the new tools help users discover more content. “New AI experiences in Search enable people to ask even more questions, which creates new opportunities for content and businesses to be discovered,” the spokesperson said.
The company pointed out that it delivers billions of clicks to websites daily and that shifts in traffic can result from factors like user interest, seasonal trends, and changes to search algorithms.
The European complaint reflects similar concerns raised in a US lawsuit by an educational technology firm, which alleges that AI Overviews have reduced demand for original content and hurt publishers’ competitiveness.
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