French newspapers appeal to antitrust regulator over Google's AI summaries

A federation of nearly 300 French newspapers said Tuesday that it filed a complaint with the country's competition authority over Google's new AI-generated summaries of search results, fearing the feature will further erode traffic to news websites.

It is the latest salvo by media companies against the US tech giant's use of their articles and other content as they grapple with ad revenue declines.

Critics say AI summaries use news content while propelling a drop in internet traffic to the articles, since many users no longer click through to read the original source of the information.

Google contends the summaries let people ask more complex questions, discover new content and help publishers manage content.

Google launched its AI Overviews in France in late July, which appear above regular links to search results and compile information from a wide array of sources.

But the APIG association of newspapers wants the country's competition regulator to ensure "Google's respect of commitments made in 2022" as part of a compensation deal with French media groups.

Information "has considerable value", APIG president Marc Feuillee, also managing director of the centre-right Le Figaro newspaper, said in a statement.

"The editors are not seeking to halt innovation. They are asking for this value to be shared, and for compensation of the use of their content," the association said in its statement.

It said Google had sprung the new artificial intelligence summaries without their consent, an alleged violation of the 2022 deal.

The competition authority had already fined Google €250 million ($290 million) in 2024 for not respecting parts of the agreement.

Many media groups have seen their revenue dwindle over the past two decades as advertising moved increasingly online, where tech firms take a big share of the profits.

The EU announced in December 2025 that it was investigating whether Google breached competition rules by using content put online by media and other publishers to train and provide AI services without appropriate compensation.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)