The European Commission opens an investigation into Google for using online content to feed its AI

Brussels.– The European Commission (EC) announced this Tuesday the opening of a formal investigation into Google for a possible breach of EU regulations by using online content from its platforms to feed artificial intelligence (AI) systems without properly compensating creators or offering them the possibility to opt out.

The investigation will examine whether the US tech giant distorts free competition by imposing “unfair terms and conditions” on online content creators or by granting itself privileged access, practices that would disadvantage developers of rival AI models, the EC reported in a statement.

In particular, the Community Executive suspects that Google may have used the content of companies or individuals who publish content on websites to provide generative AI services (“AI Overviews” and “AI Mode”) on its search results pages without offering them adequate compensation or the possibility of refusing such use of their content.

AI Overviews displays AI-generated summaries in response to a user’s query above the traditional results, while AI Mode is a chatbot-like search tab that answers user queries conversationally.