Summary
- The Consumer Protection Institute (Idec) asked Cade to deactivate Google’s AI summaries by default.
- According to the institute, the design of AI Overviews is “manipulative” and harms journalism and consumers.
- Google argues that vehicles control the use of content and that summaries are displayed based on usefulness criteria.
The Consumer Protection Institute (Idec) filed, this Monday (10/11), a contribution to the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (Cade) in the investigation into Google and abusive practices in the news market.
Idec follows criticism from Brazilian press companies and associations and says that big tech practices, such as the use of snippets (article excerpts) and the introduction of AI Overviews (AI summaries), harm the journalistic sector and the consumer.
For the organization, Google should be forced to make its generative AI tools and snippets disabled by default (opt-in), as the current search design would be “manipulative” and would be discouraging “access to full reports”.
The request for contribution is part of the investigation that investigates whether Google abuses its dominant position by displaying excerpts from reports. The investigation has been going on since 2019.
Idec criticizes reduction in quality
The institute argues that AI Overviews, which display summaries at the top of the search, exponentially worsen the “zero-click” phenomenon. The document cites a Pew Research Center study that shows that users exposed to AI digest click on traditional links almost 50% less (8% clicks with AI versus 15% without AI).
Furthermore, Idec accuses the tool of self-preference and reducing the quality of information. The demonstration cites an investigation by the agency To the Factswhich revealed that Google’s AI Overview “indiscriminately reproduced editorial content as if it were verified news.”
The institute asks Cade to convert the investigation into an Administrative Process and recognize Google’s abuse of its dominant position.
What does Google say?
Google responded to Cade’s questions this month, after postponements in the initial deadline (which ended in September). The company defends the new AI tools, stating that summaries do not give preferential treatment — a point questioned directly by vehicles such as the newspaper Zero Hour.
According to Google, summaries are only displayed if the “usefulness index” of the page with the summary is better for the user than the page without it. In response to Idec’s main criticism, Google states that journalistic outlets already have full control over the use of their content.
Google confirms that if a site uses the “nosnippet” tag, the content will not appear in overviews. However, the company admits in the same document that the use of these opt-outs (such as “nosnippet” or “max-snippet”) can affect the ranking of sites.
Source: https://tecnoblog.net/noticias/idec-pede-ao-cade-que-resumos-de-ia-no-google-sejam-desativados-por-padrao/
