Brussels, : The European Commission has opened a sweeping antitrust investigation into Alphabet’s Google over allegations that the company scraped vast amounts of online content—including YouTube videos, publisher text, and creator assets—to train its AI models such as Gemini and AI Overviews without proper consent. The probe, launched under the EU’s powerful Digital Markets Act (DMA), represents one of the most consequential regulatory challenges Google has faced in years.
EU officials say Google may have abused its position as a “gatekeeper” by harvesting billions of web pages and multimedia content to fuel its AI products, giving it an unfair competitive advantage while creators and publishers suffered an estimated $500 million in lost ad revenue, according to preliminary filings.
Competition Chief Margrethe Vestager accused Google of “systemic extraction and exploitation” of third-party content, warning that DMA penalties could reach up to 10% of Google’s $307 billion in 2024 global revenue if violations are confirmed.
Internal Google documents reviewed by investigators allegedly show large-scale scraping practices that bypassed consent protocols. The News Media Alliance, representing 2,000 global news outlets, has demanded direct royalty payments, arguing Google built a multimodal empire on uncompensated intellectual property.
Google’s Global Affairs President Kent Walker defended the company’s methods as “fair use” that accelerates innovation and benefits the public. Still, the company vowed to cooperate fully, stating it supports frameworks that “balance AI progress with creator rights.”
The case has drawn wide attention across the tech sector. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, a key competitor, publicly welcomed the EU’s scrutiny, calling transparent data sourcing a “baseline requirement for responsible AI.” The inquiry also echoes France’s 2024 legal actions, where authorities fined Google €250 million for similar content-scraping violations.
With AI adoption across EU enterprises reaching 40%, according to Capgemini, the investigation highlights growing concerns over data ethics, digital sovereignty, and whether U.S. tech giants have outsized influence amid intensifying U.S.–China AI rivalry.
Regulators are weighing remedies that could redefine global AI practices—including mandatory publisher opt-outs, explicit compensation models, and tight controls on dataset provenance. Such measures could reshape the $200 billion generative AI market, forcing major tech firms to overhaul training pipelines and licensing agreements.
Industry advocates warn that overregulation could stifle R&D and hinder Europe’s innovation ambitions, while rights groups argue the probe is necessary to establish accountability in the age of autonomous AI systems.
The Commission is expected to issue preliminary findings in early 2026, setting the stage for negotiations—or penalties—that could reverberate far beyond Europe.
