The European Commission (EU) will investigate whether Alphabet’s Google has violated competition laws by using the content of web publishers, including online video-sharing platform YouTube, for AI purposes.

The investigation will assess if Google is hurting competition by imposing unfair terms and conditions on publishers and content creators, or by granting itself privileged access to such content, putting competing AI model developers at a disadvantage.

According to the Commision, Google may have used content from web publishers to boost its AI-based services AI Overviews and AI Mode.

AI Overviews is a service that displays AI-generated summaries of user search queries above organic results, while AI Mode is a chatbot-like search tab that answers user questions in a conversational style.

The Commission said that Google may have included content from publishers in the search results pages of these services without adequately compensating them or offering them an opt out option, a particularly crucial measure as many publishers depend on Google search for user traffic and do not want to risk losing access to it.

Content creators uploading videos on YouTube have an obligation to grant Google permission to use their data for different purposes, including for training generative AI models. But Google does not remunerate YouTube content creators for their content, nor does allow them to upload their content on YouTube without allowing Google to use such data.

At the same time, rival developers of AI models are barred by YouTube policies from using YouTube content to train their own AI models, potentially granting Google a competitive dominant position, the EU commission said.

Teresa Ribera, executive vice-president for clean, just and competitive transition said in a statement that a free and democratic society depends on media diversity, open access to information, and an active creative landscape.

“These values are central to who we are as Europeans,” she said.

She went on to say that while AI continues to bring innovation, progress cannot break society’s core principles.

”This is why we are investigating whether Google may have imposed unfair terms and conditions on publishers and content creators, while placing rival AI models developers at a disadvantage, in breach of EU competition rules,” she added.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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