The European Commission (EC) has launched a formal antitrust investigation into Google on suspicion that it violated EU competition rules by using other people's online content, as well as videos posted on YouTube, to develop its artificial intelligence model.
The Commission announced today that it will investigate whether the US tech giant, which uses the Gemini AI model in search results, is distorting competition by imposing unfair conditions on publishers and content creators or by giving itself privileged access to such content, thereby putting competing artificial intelligence models at a disadvantage.
"The Commission is concerned that Google may have used web publishers' content to provide artificial intelligence-based generative services (the "AI Overviews" and "AI Mode" features) on its search results pages without adequate compensation to publishers and without the possibility of them opting out of such use of their content," the Commission said in a statement.
It adds that many publishers depend on Google Search for user visits and don't want to risk losing access to it.
The Commission is also concerned that Google may be using videos and other content uploaded to YouTube to train its artificial intelligence models without compensating the authors and without the ability to refuse such use of their content.
"Content creators who upload videos to YouTube are required to give Google permission to use their data for various purposes, including for training generative artificial intelligence models," the Commission said, noting that Google does not pay creators for their content, nor does it allow them to upload their content to YouTube without Google's permission to use such data.
At the same time, the Commission pointed out, competing companies that develop artificial intelligence models are prohibited from using YouTube content to train their own AI models.
EC Vice-President for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition Teresa Ribera stated that a free and democratic society depends on diverse media, open access to information and a vibrant creative environment.
"Artificial intelligence brings remarkable innovations and many benefits to people and businesses across Europe, but this progress must not come at the expense of the principles that are at the core of our societies. That is why we are investigating whether Google may have imposed unfair conditions on publishers and content creators, while putting competing AI model developers at a disadvantage, in breach of EU competition rules," Ribera said.
The official antitrust investigation follows Google's introduction of artificial intelligence-based search results, which led to a decline in website traffic.
Google was fined almost three billion euros in September for abusing its dominance in online advertising.
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