Category: Algorithms, AI and Automated decision-making

Foxglove, with the Independent Publishers Alliance, is pushing UK and European competition regulators to intervene and stop Google from using AI tools to scrape the work of independent news reporters and regurgitate it (often inaccurately) into summary form at the top of our screens. In July 2025, Foxglove submitted complaints to the UK Competition Markets Authority and Competition Appeals Tribunal, and the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition, calling for an injunction requiring Google to provide a permanent opt out for newsrooms.

In December 2025, in line with some of the asks in Foxglove’s submission, the European Commission announced it has begun a formal antitrust investigation into whether Google has breached EU competition rules through its use of AI Overviews.

On 3 June 2026, the CMA announced new ‘conduct requirements’ for Google, aimed at stopping it from stealing journalists’ work to feed its ‘AI Overviews. The CMA has said Google will need to implement changes so that online publishers and news organisations are able to block their content from appearing in Google’s AI summaries in UK search results.

Rosa Curling, co-executive director at Foxglove, said:

“We’re delighted that the CMA is finally standing up to Google’s theft of journalists’ work. Foxglove has been urging them to do this for the past year. Google’s AI Overviews are a threat not only to an independent news industry, but to an informed democracy.”