August 11, 2026
The Alliance of General Information Press has filed a complaint with the Competition Authority to compel Google to respect the commitments it made in 2022, following the launch in France of AI Overviews and AI Mode. What publishers are contesting is not the innovation itself, but the method.
Since the deployment of AI Overviews and AI Mode in France, an AI-generated response appears on the main search engine before the traditional links. It is built, in particular, from content provided by news publishers.
This launch occurred before the start of transparent and good-faith negotiations. Publishers were offered a simple update to the existing license agreement, with the only alternative being a technical withdrawal resulting in a loss of visibility. They were presented with a fait accompli.
The law of July 24, 2019, which made France the first country in the European Union to transpose the directive on neighbouring rights, makes the use of press content subject to prior authorisation and remuneration.
This legal framework was complemented by a competitive framework. In April 2020, the French Competition Authority sanctioned Google for unfair practices and required it to negotiate in good faith with publishers. In June 2022, it fined Google €500 million for failing to comply with these obligations. The following month, Google made commitments to negotiate in good faith, transparency, and non-discrimination, which were made mandatory by the Authority and are valid until 2027.
The unilateral deployment of new uses of press content, without prior authorisation or dedicated remuneration, disregards these commitments.
In European markets where these services are already active, the Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority (Arcom) estimates that between 33% and 38% of traffic loss is attributable to summaries generated by artificial intelligence.
The issue goes beyond the relationship with Google alone. On July 8, 2026, following a complaint filed by the Alliance in September 2025, the French Competition Authority issued four interim injunctions against Meta. At the press conference dedicated to this decision, its president, Benoît Cœuré, stated that "protected content used by AI Overviews must be subject to remuneration under neighbouring rights." The aim is to restore the conditions for negotiation.
This legal action does not preclude negotiation; rather, it aims to re-establish the conditions for it. The launch of these services, on the contrary, confirms that press content is essential to generative artificial intelligence services. Publishers are willing to support and facilitate these new uses within a balanced framework based on negotiated authorisation and remuneration commensurate with the value their content generates.
“ The fact that artificial intelligence is being built on press content says one simple thing: this information has considerable value. Publishers are not asking to stop innovation. They are asking that this value be shared and that the use of their work be compensated, as required by law. In the absence of fair and transparent negotiations, we are taking the matter to the authorities responsible for enforcing the law.” - Marc Feuillée, president of the Alliance of General Information Press
CEPIC member FNAPPI is a member of the Alliance de la Presse d’Information Générale (APIG). The original French-language version of this article can be read on the APIG website: https://www.alliancepresse.fr/actualite/services-dia-de-google-lalliance-saisit-lautorite-de-la-concurrence/