Google Faced With EU Antitrust Investigation On AI Overviews And YouTube

JAKARTA Alphabet Inc, Google's parent company, is again under pressure from EU regulators after the European Commission opened an antitrust investigation into the use of YouTube's online publishing content and videos to train its artificial intelligence models.

This is the second investigation in less than a month, underscoring the growing anxiety that tech giants could dominate the new generation of AI technology before competitors had the same opportunity.

The European Commission expressed concern that Google might take advantage of content publishers without adequate compensation through the AI Overviews feature, namely an AI-based automatic summary that appears above the traditional search results link. Similar concerns were raised regarding the use of videos uploaded by YouTube users to train the company's AI model.

EU's antitrust commissioner, Total Ribera, insists that the practice can be categorized as Google's abuse of its dominant position as a search engine. He highlighted the importance of a healthy information ecosystem, which can only survive if publishers have enough resources to produce quality content.

Ribera added that regulators would not allow digital gatekeepers' to regulate game rules at will. According to him, the sustainability of the information industry should not be sacrificed in the interests of one company's business.

Google immediately dismissed the allegations. The company said the complaints filed by the independent publisher alliance in July 2025 sparked this investigation "potentially hindering innovation in markets that are considered increasingly competitive."

A Google spokesperson said Europeans have the right to enjoy the latest technology, while emphasizing that Google continues to work closely with the news industry and content creators facing the AI era.

But the publisher group actually accused Google of violating the 'base internet agreement'. Independent Publishers Alliance, Movement for an Open Web, and British nonprofit Foxglove assess Google changed search game rules, placing AI Overviews and the AI Gemini model in a higher position than the website of the source.

Legal consultant Tim Cowen even likened Gemini to a classic search service 'bad cloud', for exploiting website content to train AI without a decent return to content owners.

AI Overviews is now available in more than 100 countries and has started showing ads since last May, reinforcing criticism that Google is monetizing publisher data without a transparent revenue distribution scheme.

Not only that, Google's anti-spam policy has also been targeted by the EU's investigation after receiving a report from the publisher. If proven to have violated competition rules, Google could potentially be fined up to 10 percent of its annual global revenue.

Last week, the European Commission also opened a separate investigation into Meta over its plan to limit AI competitor access via WhatsApp, signaling that European regulators are increasingly aggressive against big tech companies amid heated AI competition.

This new wave of investigations puts Big Tech in a difficult position, while the EU seeks to ensure digital competition remains fair at a time when AI becomes a geopolitical and global economic attractor center.