European publishers have filed a major antitrust complaint against Google with the European Commission, claiming the tech giant’s AI Overviews feature destroys their website traffic and revenue streams. The Independent Publishers Alliance leads this legal challenge, demanding immediate action to prevent what they call “irreparable harm” to the news industry.
Google AI Overviews Slash Publisher Revenue by 40%
The complaint, filed on June 30, 2025, alleges Google abuses its dominant position in online search by forcing publishers into an impossible choice. Publishers must either allow Google to use their content for AI summaries without compensation or disappear from search results entirely.
Major news outlets face devastating traffic drops since Google launched AI Overviews in May 2024. Forbes and HuffPost each lost 40% of their traffic, while CNN suffered a 28% decline and DailyMail.com dropped 32%. The New York Post and Wall Street Journal saw traffic fall by 27% and 17% respectively, according to SimilarWeb data.
Publishers Cannot Opt Out of Google AI Content Usage
The antitrust complaint highlights a critical issue. Publishers have no way to prevent Google from using their content to train AI models or generate AI Overviews without also removing themselves from Google Search completely. This creates an unfair advantage for Google, which displays AI-generated summaries at the top of search results while pushing original publisher links lower on the page.
“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,” the complaint states.
Movement for Open Web Demands Immediate Action
The Movement for an Open Web and nonprofit organization, Foxglove Legal CIC back the Independent Publishers Alliance in this legal challenge. They argue that Google’s AI Overviews create “zero-click” searches where users get their answers directly from AI summaries without visiting the original news sources.
Rosa Curling, co-executive director of Foxglove, describes the situation as dire for journalists. “Independent news faces an existential threat: Google’s AI Overviews. That’s why with this complaint, Foxglove and our partners are urging the European Commission, along with other regulators around the world, to take a stand and allow independent journalism to opt out,” she told Reuters.
Google Defends AI Overviews Despite Traffic Decline Evidence
Google dismisses the traffic loss allegations, claiming such complaints rely on “highly incomplete and skewed data.” The company argues that websites can lose traffic for various reasons, including seasonal demand changes, user interest shifts, and regular algorithm updates.
“New AI experiences in Search enable people to ask even more questions, which creates new opportunities for content and businesses to be discovered,” a Google spokesperson said. The company insists it sends billions of clicks to websites daily and that AI Overviews create more discovery opportunities.
AI Overviews Reduce Click-Through Rates by 35%
Research data contradicts Google’s claims about increased opportunities. Studies show AI Overviews decrease click-through rates by 34.5% for top-ranking pages. The average click-through rate for the top organic result on queries triggering AI Overviews dropped from 7.3% in March 2024 to just 2.6% by March 2025.
Of the top 50 news domains, 37 suffered year-over-year traffic declines after Google launched AI Overviews. This decline occurred despite major news events like the Trump assassination attempt, his election victory, and ongoing political developments that typically drive high traffic to news sites.
Google Monetizes AI Overviews While Publishers Lose Revenue
Google began adding advertisements to AI Overviews in May 2025, creating a new revenue stream while publishers watch their traffic disappear. The company positions AI-generated summaries at the top of search results, using publisher content to create these summaries without sharing the resulting ad revenue.
This practice particularly harms smaller, independent publishers who depend on Google search traffic for survival. The complaint seeks interim measures to prevent serious harm to competition and ensure continued access to diverse news sources.
Similar Complaints Filed in UK and US
The European complaint follows similar legal actions in other jurisdictions. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority confirmed receiving an identical complaint from the same group of publishers and advocacy organizations.
In the United States, an education technology company filed a lawsuit claiming Google’s AI Overviews erode demand for original content and undermine publishers’ ability to compete, resulting in fewer visitors and subscribers.
Publishers Face Existential Crisis as AI Dominates Search
The legal challenge represents a broader battle over the future of digital journalism. Publishers argue that Google’s AI Overviews threaten the economic model that supports independent journalism by providing answers without directing users to the original sources.
The Independent Publishers Alliance calls for immediate regulatory intervention to ensure fair competition and protect public access to diverse information sources. They warn that without action, the concentration of information control in Google’s hands will harm both publishers and consumers who rely on independent journalism.
The European Commission declined to comment on the ongoing complaint, but the case could set important precedents for how AI companies use publisher content worldwide. As AI integration in search accelerates, tensions between tech platforms and content creators are expected to intensify over issues of fair compensation and content usage rights.
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