Turkey opens antitrust probe into Google's AI Overviews and orders fairer terms for publishers
Turkey's competition authority opened a formal investigation into Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode and imposed interim measures requiring non-discriminatory terms that reflect the economic value of news publishers' content.
Turkey's competition authority has opened a formal investigation into Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, and it has already ordered the company to change how it treats news publishers while the case runs. The Rekabet Kurumu, as the authority is known in Turkish, announced the probe on Monday, saying it will examine whether Google broke Article 6 of the country's competition law, the provision that bars abuse of a dominant position, through the two AI features built into Google Search.
The interim measures are the part with immediate effect. According to the authority, its Competition Board decided on 8 October to require Google to set conditions for using publishers' content in AI Overviews and AI Mode that do not discriminate between news publishers, that reflect the economic value of that content, and that let publishers decide whether their material is used in those features independently of how visible they are, or whether they are indexed, in Google's other services. The decision, numbered 26-37/1000-423, was published in the authority's decisions register on 2 November.
What the investigation covers
The formal case follows a preliminary inquiry the board opened on 27 August. That inquiry looked at four questions, which the authority listed in its Turkish-language statement:
- whether AI Overviews and AI Mode changed how people get information in a way that cut traffic to news publishers and other content producers;
- whether the terms in Google's content agreements with news publishers amount to unfair contract terms;
- whether the features have an exclusionary effect on publishers, other content creators and rival AI chatbots;
- whether Google treats publishers differently when it picks sources for the AI answers or licenses their content.
The authority said the evidence of exclusionary and exploitative conduct toward news publishers had reached the level of "strong suspicion," and it imposed the measures under Article 9(4) of the law. The inclusion of AI chatbots in the list of possibly affected parties is notable: it frames the case as being about competition in AI answers as well as about publisher revenue.
The authority's own news site, Rekabet Haber, described the aim as fair sharing rather than restricting AI services. It said Google may not force news sites into its AI systems, must offer equal, transparent and non-discriminatory terms on content use and payment, and is free to decide for itself how to implement the measures and which commercial model to use. The announcement does not set a compliance deadline.
How far Google's existing opt-out goes
Google already offers publishers a way out of its AI search features. In June it began testing a Search Console setting that lets a site exclude its links and content from AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI features in Discover, and it says the control reached all websites worldwide on 31 August. Google says the setting is not used as a ranking signal for regular search results. In the same post it said AI Overviews has more than 2.5 billion monthly active users and AI Mode more than one billion monthly users.
The control has limits that bear directly on the Turkish case. Google's help page for the setting says a site that opts out gets no traffic or impressions from those features, that its content may still be used to power Search as a whole, and that the toggle does not affect AI training, which is governed by a separate Google-Extended control. It also contains no payment terms. Turkey's interim order goes further on two points: it ties the use of publisher content to its economic value, and it targets differences in how Google treats one publisher versus another.
Part of a wider regulatory push
Turkey is the latest of several regulators working on the same problem. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority imposed a conduct requirement on 3 June under its digital markets regime, requiring Google to give publishers effective tools to keep their content out of AI search features and out of AI fine-tuning, and to attribute publisher content with clear links. The CMA gave Google nine months to implement all of the changes.
In Brussels, the European Commission opened antitrust proceedings on 9 December 2025 in case AT.40983, covering Google's use of publisher content for AI Overviews and AI Mode and its use of YouTube videos for AI. The European Publishers Council filed a formal complaint in February arguing that publishers face a choice between allowing AI use and losing search visibility.
Competition enforcers are also looking more broadly at who controls AI distribution, as in the US Justice Department's questions over Nvidia's Hugging Face deal. Google, meanwhile, keeps widening its AI footprint, from world models such as Genie 4 to TPUs running in orbit.
The interim measures apply while the investigation is underway, Daily Sabah reported, citing the authority's statement. The authority has not said when it expects to conclude the investigation. In the UK, the CMA's nine-month window for Google's publisher controls runs to early March 2027.
