Press release: Brazil regulator to investigate Google AI’s theft of news
Brazil’s competition regulator today [23 April] voted unanimously to open a formal investigation into Google’s practice of taking journalists’ work, without compensation, to create its own AI summaries; while keeping users within its own services rather than directing them to publisher’s sites.
Google rolled out ‘AI Overviews’ (AIOs) in Brazil in summer 2024. These ‘scrape’ information from other websites, and use it to create summaries which Google shows to users at the top of its search results page.
Research has shown that, when an AIO is displayed, there is a significant reduction in the number of users who click through to news websites. This creates the “zero-click” phenomenon where users are kept in Google’s environment rather than visiting publishers’ sites.
Google’s AIOs display information taken from news outlets on its own site, while pushing links to those outlets further down the page – making it less likely that its users will visit them. This loss of traffic makes it significantly more difficult for news media organisations to financially support their work.
At the moment, publishers can only opt out of having their work stolen for AIOs by opting out of being listed by Google search altogether. With Google controlling over 90% of search, this means effectively removing themselves from the internet.
In November 2025, four organisations working on human rights, consumer rights, freedom of information and technology, alongside academic partners, submitted evidence to an inquiry into Google by Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE). The evidence, submitted by Article 19 Brazil and South America, IDEC, CTS-FGV and tech justice non-profit Foxglove, demonstrated the negative impact Google AIOs are having on independent journalism, both in Brazil and around the world.
Foxglove commissioned independent research on the impact of Google AI Overviews in Brazil, which found that they could lead to a loss of nearly 60% of traffic to publishers’ websites. The study by Authoritas found that, when an AI Overview appears on a search, publishers who previously held the top spot can expect that they will lose 58.3% of the visitors for that query.
Google is already facing investigations from other regulators on this issue – including the European Commission, and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). In December 2025, the European Commission said it was “concerned that Google may have used [t]he content of web publishers to provide generative AI-powered services (‘AI Overviews’ and ‘AI Mode’) on its search results pages without appropriate compensation to publishers and without offering them the possibility to refuse such use of their content.”
Foxglove, Article 19, IDEC and CTS-FGV have welcomed today’s decision from CADE, but warn that urgent intervention is still needed to stop the harm to independent news organisations, which may not survive until the end of a lengthy investigation.
Stella Caram, Head of Legal at Foxglove said: “This is a welcome step forward. By stealing the work of journalists and imposing unsustainable conditions on news and investigations production, Google is not only harming the news industry – it is threatening a key pillar of our democracy: the ability to produce and access reliable, plural and independent information.
“The harm is especially serious with the upcoming elections, when the public’s ability to access trustworthy journalism is essential to informed democratic participation. If Google is allowed to continue in this way, many news outlets will simply be unable to survive. Without a plural and independent press, it will be much harder to hold the powerful – including tech giants like Google – to account. CADE is right to recognise that this is not only a competition issue affecting a market but one that goes to the health of our democratic societies. We hope the authority will act urgently to protect journalism as a whole, including independent journalism we all rely on.”
Priscila Brolio, founding partner at law firm Brolio Gonçalves Advogados, which represented the organisations in the CADE proceedings, said: “The competition law aims to protect society as a whole against abuses of economic power. This case is a textbook example of fulfilling that objective. Enabling the participation of civil society is not an easy task, but Cade has adopted initiatives and is steadily moving forward in that direction.”
ENDS
Notes to editors
1. For further information, please contact Foxglove via press [AT] foxglove.org.uk
2. Copies of the submission to CADE, and of Authoritas’ research, are available on request.
3. The European Commission’s December 2025 press release announcing its investigation into Google AIO can be found here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_2964