New problems for Google. The European Commission has launched an antitrust investigation to determine whether the Mountain View tech giant violated European competition rules by training its artificial intelligence (AI) using content from online publishers and videos already on YouTube.
The antitrust investigation into Google
AI Overview is one of the tools that appeared on Google thanks to the arrival of artificial intelligence on the search engine. It’s the section that appears at the top of the results page and provides a concise answer to the user’s search query.
According to Reuters, if the investigation confirms Google’s violation of competition rules, the company that owns it could face a fine of up to 10% of its global annual revenue. This is, in fact, what European Union antitrust rules—specifically, Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)—provide, which establish the level of penalties if a company is found guilty of abusing a dominant position.
The European investigation into possible unfair competition practices by Google in training its AI models comes just days after the announcement of several commercial agreements between Meta and the publishers of some of the most widely read US online media outlets—such as CNN and Fox News—and the French daily Le Monde. These agreements govern the use by the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp of the content published by the signatory publishers. Furthermore, thanks to these collaborations, Meta will be able to provide real-time news via its Meta AI chatbot. However, the financial details of the agreements have not been disclosed.