An alliance of media and digital organisations have filed a complaint with Germany’s Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) against Google’s AI Overviews.
It is the second instance this week of pushback against AI Overviews, following The Hollywood Reporter and Variety publisher Penske Media Corp becoming the first news publisher to sue Google over the product’s negative impact on traffic and revenue.
The German complaint says Google’s integration of AI-generated answers into search violates key provisions of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).
The DSA, established in 2022, is designed to regulate digital services, especially large online platforms such as Google, Meta, Amazon.
The complaint calls on the European Commission to initiate proceedings against Google.
It claims Google’s AI-generated responses prevents clickthroughs, competes with journalistic and editorial content and deprives publishers of reach and ad revenue.
The signatories said this has “serious consequences for media diversity, freedom of expression, and democratic discourse”.
The members of the alliance involved in the complaint include German media association BDZV which represents more than 300 media brands, German Journalists’ Association (DJV), the European Federation of Journalists, the European Magazine Media Association and European Newspaper Publishers’ Association, and AlgorithmWatch.
Google AI Overviews is a ‘traffic killer’
Daniela Beaujean, managing director of audio media association Vaunet, said on behalf of the alliance: “Google is placing its AI answers ahead of third-party content and is thus becoming a ‘traffic killer’.
“As a result, Google AI Overviews reduces the reach and findability of independent and democracy-relevant private media.
“As a platform relevant for the dissemination of information and content, Google is called upon to counteract the corresponding risks, lack of transparency and misinformation.”
Dr Christine Jury-Fischer, managing director of rightsholder organisation Corint Media, said: “Google is once again pushing back competing offerings, in order to consolidate its own position of power.
“If media diversity and democratic discourse are to be preserved, regulatory intervention is urgently needed.
“After all, ‘digital sovereignty’ not only means having an independent digital infrastructure, but also ensuring the independent, non-discriminatory distribution of digital journalistic content.”
Google has already been hit by an antitrust complaint to the European Commission from the Independent Publishers Alliance asking for an interim measure to stop the harm they say is being caused by AI Overviews.
The document, filed in July, said: “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.”
A similar bid to stop Google AI Overviews “stealing journalism” was also lodged with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, asking the regulator to implement interim measures preventing Google from “misusing” publisher content in AI-generated responses while the watchdog gears up to carry out proposed action.
Google AI Mode rollout continues
However Google has continued to roll out its AI features, with AI Mode gaining traction.
AI Mode is currently a separate tab in Google search results that gives longer, more detailed answers to search queries. It is now being added into the address bar on Google’s dominant Chrome browser.
Robby Stein, vice president of product for Google Search, said: “This means you can use AI Mode to ask complex, multi-part questions right from the same place you already search and browse the web from Chrome. And you can quickly ask follow-up questions and explore more content from across the web.”
The feature is being rolled out to users in the US this month and “will expand to more countries and languages in the weeks ahead”, he said.
Stein and VP of engineering Rajan Patel also revealed Google is launching “contextual search suggestions” in the Chrome address bar based on the page a user is browsing on. For example, when a user is on a home furniture site, clicking on the Google search bar will automatically prompt the question “what’s the warranty policy?”.
The pair said: “You’ll get a helpful AI Overview on the right-hand side of the page, where you can ask follow-up questions with AI Mode – getting helpful information without ever leaving your current page. This makes accessing the information you want – when you want it – simpler than ever before.”
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