The European Commission (EC) has opened an investigation into Google’s use of online content to power its AI tools and services.
The antitrust probe is looking into if Google is breaching competition rules by using content from web publishers and YouTube creators to train its AI models.
The EC said the basis of the investigation is grounded in Google “distorting competition by imposing unfair terms and conditions on publishers and content creators” and “granting itself privileged access to such content.”
Through this ‘special’ access to online content, Google may be at an unfair advantage compared with other AI companies, the EU body said in a statement.
AI Mode, Compensation and Attribution
The Commission also went on to outline that web publishers not receiving payment or, in many cases, attribution for their content is also a leading cause for the investigation.
Much of this content is surfaced in Google’s AI Mode or AI Overviews. In both features, publisher content is used to power a bespoke conversational response to users, meaning people don’t have to navigate to websites to find the information they need.
This use of content has had a major impact on online publisher traffic, having a knock-on effect on the online advertising industry.
This marks one of the first official probes into an AI company using online content to train its models – with the issue of copyright being a central cause of concern for website owners since the rise of GenAI tools in recent years.
Some of the investigation will focus on this, and the fact that publishers haven’t been given an option by Google to not have their content included in these summaries.
The EC will look into how much AI Overviews and AI Mode is based on web publisher content, without publishers receiving compensation, and without them being able to refuse without losing their Google Search ranking.
YouTube content will also be a part of the investigation, covering similar grounds – how YouTube content is used to train AI models without giving creators the possibility to opt out or compensation.
Currently YouTube creators are forced to grant Google permission to use their data for various reasons, including training AI models.
