French publishers refer Google to competition watchdog

Around 300 daily papers belonging to the Alliance de la presse d'information générale are affected. The association accuses Google of breaching the commitments it gave the Autorité de la concurrence in 2022 — binding until 2027 — on good-faith negotiation, transparency and non-discrimination, through its deployment of AI Overviews/AI Mode.

French newspaper association Apig referred Google to the Autorité de la concurrence on 11 August 2026. On the scale of the impact the source gives two separate and unrelated measurements: an Arcom assessment cited by Apig showing a 33 to 38% loss of traffic in the European markets where the feature is already live, and a Define Media Group study finding a 42% decline across a panel of 64 publisher sites in the United States. The report gives no date for the French launch of AI Overviews. Google was fined EUR 500m in 2021 for failing to honour earlier commitments to the authority.