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11:19 GMT
BRUSSELS, Dec 9 (KUNA) -- The European Commission announced on Tuesday that it has opened a formal investigation into suspected anticompetitive practices by the US company Google, related to its use of online publishersآ’ content as well as materials uploaded by users on the YouTube platform for the development of artificial intelligence systems.
The Commission said in a statement that the investigation aims to verify whether Google has violated EU competition rules by "imposing unfair terms" on publishers and content creators, or by granting itself an "unjustified advantage" in accessing such data, thereby placing developers of competing AI models at a disadvantage.
It explained that its concerns focus on the possibility that Google has used publishersآ’ content to produce AI-driven services in search results pages "without appropriate compensation to publishers or giving them the ability to refuse such use without losing access to Google Search," a sensitive issue given that many media outlets rely heavily on traffic generated by the search engine.
The investigation also covers Googleآ’s use of videos and other material uploaded on YouTube to train its AI models "without providing compensation to content creators and without allowing them the option to refuse," while YouTubeآ’s policies prohibit rival companies from using the same content to train their own models.
The Commission stressed that if these practices are proven, they may constitute a violation of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Article 54 of the European Economic Area Agreement, both of which prohibit abuse of a dominant market position.
EU Commissioner for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition Teresa Ribera said that "a free and democratic society relies on diverse media, open access to information, and a thriving creative environment."
She added: "This is why we are investigating whether Google has imposed unfair conditions on publishers and content creators, granting itself an advantage that harms developers of competing AI models, in violation of EU competition rules." (end)
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