Google's AI Overview DSA Liability

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Another complaint against Google for AI Overviews, is Google going to have to withdraw AI Overviews from Europe? mlex.com/mlex/articles/2471879

This latest complaint, now referred to the European Commission under DSA Article 65, relates to "systemic risk" allegedly impacted people's freedom of information and media pluralism, since journalistic content is getting summarised into AI overviews displayed at the top

The fact that the Italian DSA authority referred it comes after their own investigation. Per DSA Art 65, they have to "have reason to suspect" an infringement of the DSA and that the infringement "is of a systemic nature"

Under the DSA there's a potential fine of 6% of Google's global turnover, on top of existing competition complaints over the same conduct.

That same conduct is currently subject to antitrust complaints from other European Publishers pro.politico.eu/news/212843

The Commission is also currently investigating Google's AI overviews from the input side (where the data comes from) ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/da/ip_25_2964

Parliament also adopted a Motion on the DMA urging the EC to use its powers to investigate "discriminatory presentation" in search engines due to AI-drive search results (specifically citing AI overviews). europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20260423IPR41844/digital-markets-act-meps-want-stronger-enforcement-amid-external-pushback

And lawyers for publisher groups have been arguing for some time that the EC needs to enforce "search neutrality" through competition and/or DMA.

6% for DSA, 10% for competition (inputs and/or outputs), another up to 20% for DMA, and that's of global turnover, not profits. And it doesn't account for private enforcement (civil damage claims). And that's all for the "crime" of bringing AI overviews to the people, for free.

This raises two important questions: (1) where is the coordination of all these enforcement actions? The DSA and DMA were supposed to harmonise rules in the Single Market so companies knew what their responsibilities were. But here we have multiple different laws overlapping.

There needs to be stronger coordination mechanisms in the EU so companies can actually launch new beneficial products without having to fend off dozens of different investigations and complaints whenever their conduct has an adverse impact on competitors.

(2) the sheer amount of potential liability here, especially given the increasing geopolitical tensions between the US and the EU. Could Google just end up being caught in the trade/tariff cross-fire? At some point Google may just decide to pull these services from Europe.

But if Europe pulls these services, that would really serve only competitors (who will be the place to go for the most advanced digital services), not users, who would lose out on the services provided by Google. It's a bad situation for Europe, but it just keeps happening...