French newspaper alliance urges action against Google AI Overviews

France's leading newspaper alliance issued a statement on Tuesday calling for action over Google's AI Overviews amid concerns that the feature could reduce traffic to news websites.

The General Information Press Alliance (APIG), which represents some 300 daily newspapers, said it had referred the matter to the Competition Authority to ensure that Google complies with the commitments it made in 2022.

It said AI Overviews, artificial intelligence-generated responses that appear above traditional search links, are built using content from news publishers and were launched before any negotiations took place.

"Publishers were offered only an update to the existing licensing agreement, with the sole alternative being a technical withdrawal resulting in a loss of visibility. They were presented with a fait accompli," the group wrote in their statement.

The alliance pointed to a 2019 law that makes the use of press content subject to prior authorization and remuneration, and recalled that Google made commitments in 2022 to negotiate in good faith, ensure transparency and avoid discrimination, which were made binding by the Competition Authority until 2027.

"The unilateral deployment of new uses of press content, without prior authorization or dedicated remuneration, fails to comply with these commitments," the statement said.

The alliance further cited estimates by the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (Arcom) that traffic losses attributable to AI-generated summaries range between 33% and 38% in European markets where the services are already active.

It stressed that the complaint aims to restore the conditions for further negotiations, underlining that publishers are willing to support these new uses within a balanced framework based on negotiated authorization and remuneration.

“The fact that artificial intelligence is being built on press content says one simple thing: this information has considerable value. Publishers are not asking for innovation to stop. They are asking for this value to be shared and for the use of their work to be remunerated, as required by law," the statement added.