The standoff between the European press and Google has just reached a new milestone. On February 10, 2026, the European Publishers Council filed an official complaint with the European Union authorities. He accuses the American giant of drawing from press articles to train its artificial intelligence tools, without ever asking permission, and without paying a single cent to the editorial offices concerned.
In brief
- The European Publishers Council filed a complaint against Google on February 10, 2026 in Brussels.
- Google automatically generates article summaries via AI, without paying the media concerned.
- AI previews reportedly reduced publisher traffic by 33% globally.
- The European Commission has already been investigating Google for abuse of a dominant position since December 2025.
Google's AI silently sucks up journalism
On February 10, 2026, the European Publishers Council filed a formal complaint against Google with the European Union authorities. Indeed, the organization, which represents hundreds of media outlets across the continent, disputes the display of automatic summaries generated by AI at the top of search results pages.
These summaries are based on press articles written by journalists – without prior agreement, and without the slightest financial compensation for the editorial staff.
Christian Van Thillo, President of the Council, does not take gloves. For him, it is a pure and simple confiscation of journalistic work.
“ This is to prevent a dominant player from abusing its market power to appropriate publishers' content without their consent, without fair compensation. “, he declared in a press release.
For years, publishers and Google coexisted in a fragile but functional balance: Google directed readers to information sites, the media provided it with quality content. AI previews break that pact. Fewer clicks, fewer visitors, less advertising revenue.
The figures speak for themselves. According to a Debug Lies analysisGoogle's AI Previews have reduced publisher traffic by 33% globally since its deployment.
An impossible dilemma, a European investigation in ambush
Google does not intend to give up ground. A spokesperson for the group responded that the complaint aimed in particular to “slow down the development of new useful AI features that Europeans want”.
The firm also claims to offer tools allowing sites to deactivate these features. However, the editors reject this argument.
The reasoning is clear: withdrawing from AI previews also means losing visibility in traditional search results. In other words, the media face a difficult choice: either they accept that their work feeds Google's AI for free, or they become invisible to Internet users. Two options, no favorable outcome.
This complaint comes at the best time for regulators. The European Commission had already opened an investigation in December 2025 into the search engine's practices. In February 2026, Teresa Ribera, executive vice-president of the EU, spoke of emergency measures to limit the damage to the media sector, without waiting for the conclusion of the investigation.
If the authorities agree with the publishers, Google could be forced to deploy an automated remuneration system. A mechanism that would be inspired by the 2019 European copyright directive – but on a much larger scale.
In short, this affair goes far beyond a simple dispute between a technological giant and editorial offices. It raises a fundamental question for the future of the web: who pays when artificial intelligence feeds on human labor? The European decision could set a global precedent. And for independent media, this may be their last opportunity to weigh in on this debate before it is too late.
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