The European Union has launched an investigation into Google to find out whether it abused its dominant position by using its own artificial intelligence tools to oust competitors. This is stated on the European Commission’s website, UNN writes.
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Among other things, the investigation will examine whether Google distorts competition by imposing unfair conditions on publishers and content creators, or by giving itself privileged access to content that puts competing AI model developers at a disadvantage.
Google is a multinational technology company headquartered in the United States that specializes in Internet services and products, including online advertising technology, search, cloud computing, software, hardware, and AI.
-The report states:
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The Committee is concerned that Google may have used:
Web Publishing Content provides Generated AI Services (“AI Overview” and “AI Mode”) on search results pages without paying appropriate compensation to Publishers or giving them the option to opt out of such use of their Content. AI Overview displays AI-generated summaries above organic search results in response to your search queries, and AI Mode is a chatbot-like search tab that conversationally answers your queries. The committee will investigate the extent to which Google’s creation of AI Overview and AI Mode is based on web publishing content without adequate compensation and without the ability for publishers to opt out of the use of their content without losing access to Google Search. Many publishers rely on Google Search for user traffic and don’t want to risk losing that traffic. Videos and other content uploaded to YouTube to train Google’s generative AI models cannot be properly compensated to the creators or opt out of such use of their content. Content creators who upload videos to YouTube must give Google permission to use their data for various purposes, including training generative AI models. Google doesn’t pay creators for their content or allow them to upload their content to YouTube without giving Google the rights to use it. At the same time, competing AI developers cannot use YouTube content to train their own models due to the platform’s policies.
If proven, these actions may violate EU competition rules (Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)) and Article 54 of the Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA), which prohibit the abuse of a dominant position.
– Added EU.
The committee will now conduct a comprehensive investigation as a priority. The initiation of a formal investigation does not prejudge its outcome.
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