Star Metro - French newspapers target Google over AI summaries

It is the latest salvo by media companies against the US tech giant's use of their articles and other content as they grapple with ad revenue declines.

Google launched its AI Overviews in France in late July, which appear above regular links to search results and compile information from a wide array of sources.

But the APIG association of newspapers wants the country's competition regulator to ensure "Google's respect of commitments made in 2022" as part of a compensation deal with French media groups.

Information "has considerable value", APIG president Marc Feuillee, also managing director of the centre-right Le Figaro newspaper, said in a statement.

"The editors are not seeking to halt innovation. They are asking for this value to be shared, and for compensation of the use of their content," the association said in its statement.

It said Google had sprung the new artificial intelligence summaries without their consent, an alleged violation of the 2022 deal.

The competition authority had already fined Google 250 million euros ($290 million) in 2024 for not respecting parts of the agreement.

Many media groups have seen their revenue dwindle over the past two decades as advertising moved increasingly online, where tech firms take a big share of the profits.

Critics say AI summaries cause further harm by leading to a drop in internet traffic to newspapers' articles -- with many users no longer clicking through to read the original source of the information.

Google contends they let people ask more complex questions and discover new content, and says it provides controls to help publishers manage their content.

The EU announced in December 2025 that it was investigating whether Google breached competition rules by using content put online by media and other publishers to train and provide AI services without appropriate compensation.

X.Gaboury--SMC