coalition of NGOs, media associations, and publishers in Germany has filed a proper Digital Companies Act (DSA) grievance in opposition to Google’s AI Overviews, arguing the characteristic diverts site visitors and income from impartial media, will increase misinformation dangers by way of opaque methods, and threatens media plurality. Beneath the DSA, violations can carry fines as much as 6% of world income—a doubtlessly multibillion-dollar publicity.
The grievance claims that AI Overviews reply customers’ queries inside Google, short-circuiting click-throughs to the unique sources and ravenous publishers of advert and subscription revenues. As a result of customers can’t see how solutions are generated or verified, the coalition warns of heightened misinformation danger and erosion of democratic discourse.
Why the Digital Companies Act Issues
As I perceive the DSA, the information publishers can both (1) lodge a grievance with their nationwide Digital Companies Coordinator alleging a platform’s DSA breach (triggers regulatory scrutiny); (2) Use the platform dispute instruments: first the inner complaint-handling system, then licensed out-of-court dispute settlement for moderation/search-display disputes—typically quicker sensible aid; (3) Sue for damages in nationwide courts for losses attributable to a supplier’s DSA infringement (Artwork. 54); or (4) Act collectively by mandating a professional entity or by means of the EU Consultant Actions Directive to hunt injunctions/redress (type of like class actions within the US however extra restricted in scope).
Beneath the DSA, Very Massive On-line Platforms (VLOPs) and Very Massive On-line Search Engines (VLOSEs) are providers with greater than 45 million EU customers (roughly 10% of the inhabitants). As soon as formally designated by the European Fee, they face stricter obligations than smaller platforms: conducting annual systemic danger assessments, implementing mitigation measures, submitting to impartial audits, offering information entry to researchers, and making certain transparency in recommender methods and promoting. Enforcement is centralized on the Fee, with penalties as much as 6% of world income. This issues as a result of VLOPs like Google, Meta, and TikTok should alter core design decisions that immediately have an effect on media visibility and income.In parallel, the European Fee/DSCs retain highly effective public-enforcement instruments in opposition to Very Massive On-line Platforms.
As a chosen Very Massive On-line Platform, Google faces strict duties to mitigate systemic dangers, present algorithmic transparency, and keep away from conduct that undermines media pluralism. The grievance contends AI Overviews violate these necessities by changing outbound hyperlinks with Google’s personal synthesized solutions.
The U.S. Angle: Penske lawsuit
A Main Writer Has Sued Google in Federal Courtroom Over AI Overview
On Sept. 14, 2025, Penske Media (Rolling Stone, Billboard, Selection) sued Google in D.C. federal court docket, alleging AI Overviews repurpose its journalism, depress clicks, and harm income—marking the primary lawsuit by a serious U.S. writer aimed squarely at AI Overviews. The claims embody an allegation on training-use claiming that Google enriched itself by utilizing PMC’s works to prepare and floor fashions powering Gemini/AI Overviews, looking for restitution and disgorgement. Penske additionally argues that Google abuses its search monopoly to coerce publishers: indexing is successfully tied to letting Google (a) republish/summarize their materials in AI Overviews, Featured Snippets, and AI Mode, and (b) use their works to prepare Google’s LLMs—decreasing click-through and revenues whereas letting Google develop its monopoly into on-line publishing.
Commerce Teams Urged FTC/DOJ Motion
The Information/Media Alliance had beforehand requested the FTC and DOJ to examine AI Overviews for diverting site visitors and ‘misappropriating’ publishers’ investments, calling for enforcement below FTC Act §5 and Sherman Act §2.
Knowledge Exhibiting Site visitors Hurt
Trade analyses point out materials referral declines tied to AI Overviews. Digital Content material Subsequent studies Google Search referrals down 1%–25% for many member publishers over current weeks; Digiday pegs impacts as a lot as 25%. The pattern feeds a broader ‘Google Zero’ concern—zero-click outcomes displacing writer visits.
Why Europe vs. U.S. Paths Differ
The EU/DSA presents a procedural path to evaluate systemic danger and platform design decisions like AI Overviews and levy platform-wide treatments and fines. Within the U.S., the battle at the moment runs by means of non-public litigation (Penske) and competitors/consumer-protection advocacy at FTC/DOJ, the place enforcement instruments differ and take longer to mobilize.
RAG vs. Coaching Knowledge Points
AI Overviews are finest understood as a Retrieval-Augmented Technology (RAG) concern. Readers will recall that RAG might be essentially the most direct instance of verbatim copying in AI outputs. The harms come up as a result of Google as intermediary retrieves reside writer content material and synthesizes it into a solution contained in the Search Engine Outcomes Web page (SERP), decreasing site visitors to the sources. That is distinct from the training-data lawsuits (Kadrey, Bartz) that allege illegal ingestion of works throughout mannequin pretraining.
Kadrey: Oblique Market Hurt
A RAG case like Penske’s may be characterised as oblique market hurt. Choose Chhabria’s ruling in Kadrey below U.S. regulation highlights that market hurt isn’t restricted to direct substitution for honest use functions. Issue 4 in honest use evaluation contains foreclosures of licensing and spinoff markets. For AI/search, which means lowered referrals depress advert and subscription income, whereas widespread zero-click synthesis could foreclose an rising licensing marketplace for summaries and excerpts. Proof of hurt contains earlier than/after referral information, income deltas, and qualitative harms like model erasure and lack of attribution. Treatments may embody extra distinguished linking, revenue-sharing, compliance with robots/opt-outs, and provenance disclosures.
I like them RAG circumstances.
The Important Difficulty is Related in EU and US
Whether or not in Brussels or Washington, the core dispute could be very related: Who captures the worth of journalism in an AI-mediated search world? Germany’s DSA grievance and Penske’s U.S. lawsuit body twin fronts of a bigger battle—one about management of distribution, cost for content material, and the way forward for a pluralistic press. To not point out the standard free-riding and competitors points swirling round Google because it extracts rents by inserting itself into locations it’s not wished.
How an AI Moratorium Would Preclude Penske’s Lawsuit
Many “AI moratorium” proposals operate as broad protected harbors with preemption. A moratorium to learn AI and choose nationwide champions was the topic of an IP Subcommittee listening to on September 18. If Congress enacted a moratorium that (1) expressly immunizes core AI practices (coaching, grounding, and SERP-level summaries), (2) preempts overlapping state claims, and (3) channels disputes into company processes with unique public enforcement, it could successfully shut the courthouse door to personal fits like Penske and make the US extra like Europe with out the enforcement equipment. Right here’s how:
Specific immunity for coated conduct. If the statute declares that utilizing publicly out there content material for coaching and for retrieval-augmented summaries in search is lawful through the moratorium, Penske’s core principle (RAG substitution plus coaching use) loses its predicate.
No non-public proper of motion / unique public enforcement. Limiting enforcement to the FTC/DOJ (or a chosen tech regulator) would bar non-public plaintiffs from looking for damages or injunctions over coated AI conduct.
Antitrust carve-out or company preclearance. Congress may present that coated AI practices (AI Overviews, featured snippets powered by generative fashions, coaching/grounding on public net content material) can not type the premise for Sherman/Clayton legal responsibility through the moratorium, or should first be reviewed by the company—undercutting Penske’s §1/§2 counts.
Major-jurisdiction plus statutory keep. Requiring first resort to the company with a compulsory keep of court docket actions would pause (or dismiss) Penske till the regulator acts.
Preemption of state-law theories. A preemption clause would sweep in state unjust-enrichment and consumer-protection claims that parallel the coated AI practices.
Limits on injunctive aid. Barring courts from enjoining coated AI options (e.g., SERP-level summaries) and reserving design adjustments to the company would eradicate the centerpiece treatment Penske seeks.
Potential retroactive defend. If drafted to use to previous conduct, a moratorium may moot pending fits by deeming prior coaching/RAG makes use of compliant for the moratorium interval.
A moratorium with protected harbors, preemption, and agency-first evaluate would both keep, intestine, or bar Penske’s antitrust and unjust-enrichment claims—reframing the dispute as a regulatory matter quite than a non-public lawsuit. Need to guess that White Home AI Viceroy David Sacks will likely be sitting in judgement?
