EU antitrust regulators Quiz Publishers on Google's AI search opt-out: report

The European Commission circulated a detailed questionnaire to news and media publishers, asking whether they plan to utilize Google’s newly introduced AI opt-out mechanism and evaluating the commercial factors influencing their decisions.

Publishers have long complained that Google's "AI Overviews" and conversational "AI Mode" siphon critical referral traffic and ad revenue by displaying synthesized answers directly on search results pages without adequate compensation or attribution.

The EU's fact-finding push follows parallel international actions, such as UK antitrust mandates—scrutinizing whether Google's opt-out design presents a fair choice or forces publishers into a high-risk trade-off between losing visibility or giving away proprietary content.

The ​document also asked publishers for their views on ​changes ⁠to Google's search box announced in May which included bringing AI Overviews and AI Mode into one AI Search.

As reported by Reuters, the world's most ⁠popular ​internet search engine has racked up more ​than 10 billion euros in EU antitrust fines for various violations over ​nearly two decades.

Regulators are analyzing responses to determine if Google's search modifications comply with bloc competition rules, keeping open the possibility of formal charges against the tech giant.