Six European Collective Management Organisations (from Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain), including the OSDEL, call for immediate regulatory interventions and strict implementation of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) to ensure pluralism and competition in the media.
In a letter sent to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, they warn of the serious impact on the media sector due to Google's artificial intelligence-based search function, AI Mode and AI reviews (Overview) of Google, functions that dramatically limit traffic to publishers' websites.
As the introduction of AI Mode is predicted to almost completely eliminate traffic referral, the need to take action is considered imperative.
The text of the letter addressed to Ursula von der Leyen states:
Honorable Madam President,
We are writing to you to urgently draw your attention to the ongoing and worsening challenges arising from Google's implementation of artificial intelligence search features, in the context of the European Commission's proceedings (Case DMA.100193) concerning possible infringements of Articles 6(5) and 6(12) of the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
Since autumn 2024, we have repeatedly stressed, in both written and oral communications, that the scope of the Commission's non-compliance investigation should explicitly cover Google's "AI reviews": that is, AI-generated answers that appear prominently in search results. Since the launch of these features on 26 March 2025 in several Member States, including Germany, our warnings have been confirmed, with serious implications for competition and the SME sector.
More recently, during the meeting that Corint Media had with the responsible Case Management Team on 24 June 2025, an even more worrying development was highlighted: the introduction of Google’s “AI Mode”, which places AI-generated responses at the centre of the user experience while encouraging conversation. This development not only intensifies the promotion of its own services, in breach of Article 6(5) of the DMA, but also in breach of Article 6(12) of the DMA, by further restricting “business users’ access to online search engines”. Furthermore, in most cases, this practice entails the unauthorised and therefore unlawful reproduction and public communication of content from press publishers.
The serious consequences for competition and the SME sector, which have now become a reality in many Member States following the introduction of AI reviews on 26 March 2025, were already foreseen last year.
The threat to European media providers is acute and systemic. Google, leveraging its market-dominant platforms (Google Search, Android, Chrome), is increasingly retaining traffic within its own ecosystem. In the past, users were driven to the original publishers, supporting publishers’ traffic and revenue. Today, AI-based tools are drastically reducing traffic referral: empirical data and market studies (e.g. from Bloomberg in April 2025) report reductions of over 70% for publishers in the US since similar tools were launched there, while other forecasts show even more severe impacts, up to 97%.
The consequences for media pluralism and by extension for democratic debate are profound. The Commission itself has recognised these risks in the context of its activities on the "European Democratic Shield".
The graphs above clearly show the trend: Google seeks to dominate almost every search query with an AI answer and exclude competing services and offerings.
The situation is getting worse exponentially. A few years ago, for every second page crawled by Google, one user was redirected to the original publisher. Six months ago, the ratio was 6:1; today it's 18:1. As a result, it's now about nine times harder to get traffic through Google.
And that’s just the beginning. In the future, independent researchers expect that the introduction of AI Mode will almost completely eliminate referral traffic. The phenomenon is also visible in other services similar to AI Mode. Six months ago, OpenAI had a ratio of 250:1, today it is 1.500:1. Just last week, Google introduced a new service that affects the “Discover” function, where it displays personalized content without the user’s search, summarizing news articles in bullet points instead of directing users to content creators.
It should be emphasized: this is not a “natural” technological evolution, but the result of strategic design choices by Google, as evidenced by the rapidly deteriorating ratio between pages indexed and visits referred. Regulatory intervention in other Member States, notably France where AI reviews have not been rolled out due to effective oversight, shows that alternative outcomes are possible.
We welcome the Commission's initial steps and the fact that extensive investigations into non-compliance are underway. However, the exponential acceleration of these practices, the absence of fair competition measures and the existential threat to Europe's media require immediate intervention at the highest level.
We respectfully request that you ensure the full and effective implementation of the DMA, including urgent, targeted measures against both self-promotion and the substitution of business users by AI-based functions. Only through robust enforcement will it be possible to preserve a pluralistic, independent SME landscape and ensure fair competition for European innovators in the fields of digital technology and artificial intelligence.
It would be our pleasure to discuss this with you personally.
The signatories:
Centro Español de Derechos Reprográficos EGDPI (Spain)
Corint Media GmbH (Germany)
Danish Press Publications Collective Management Organization (Denmark)
OSDEL – GREEK COLLECTING SOCIETY FOR LITERARY WORKS (Greece)
REPROPOL – JOURNALISTS AND PUBLISHERS (Poland)
OPR Foundation (Below Countries)
Read the letter here.
The signatories to this letter are collective management organisations established in accordance with Directive 2014/26/EU. They represent press publishers and most of them are responsible for the management and protection of intellectual property rights in press publications, including, inter alia, the new rights of press publishers under Article 15 of Directive (EU) 2019/790.
