Turkey Opens Probe Into Google AI Overviews, Orders Interim Fixes for Publishers

Turkey’s Competition Authority on Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, said it has opened a formal Google AI Overviews investigation into whether the company abused a dominant position through the AI summaries and AI Mode in its search engine. The Ankara-based regulator also ordered interim measures covering how Google uses news publishers’ content and pays for it.

Key figures: Formal probe opened Nov. 2 · preliminary inquiry began Aug. 27 · interim measures adopted Oct. 8 · four earlier Turkish fines on Google total about 3.74 billion lira · Pew found link clicks fall from 15% to 8% when an AI summary appears

What Turkey is investigating

The authority said the case, opened under Article 41 of Turkey’s competition law, will determine whether Alphabet and four Google units violated Article 6, the law’s ban on abuse of dominance. A preliminary inquiry that began Aug. 27 looked at four questions:

• whether AI Overviews and AI Mode changed how people find information and cut traffic to news publishers and other content creators;
• whether the terms in Google’s content agreements with news publishers are unfair;
• whether the features shut out news publishers, other creators and AI chatbots; and
• whether Google treated publishers differently when choosing or licensing their content for the AI features.

The interim orders

The Competition Board said evidence of exclusionary and exploitative conduct toward news publishers had reached the level of “strong suspicion,” so it adopted interim measures at its Oct. 8 meeting. Google must set terms that do not discriminate among news publishers and that reflect the economic value of their content. Google must also let publishers decide how their content is used in AI Overviews and AI Mode without that choice affecting their visibility or indexing in other Google services.

That last point goes to publishers’ central complaint: that refusing AI use could cost them search traffic. Google began offering publishers an AI opt-out in June and finished rolling it out worldwide on Aug. 31, Reuters reported. The Boston Report has covered the industry’s push for a common AI training opt-out signal. The authority’s announcement did not include a response from Google.

By the numbers

Turkey has fined Google four times since 2021: 296.1 million lira in April 2021 for favoring its local search and hotel ads, 482 million lira in June 2024 for missing a compliance deadline on hotel searches, 2.61 billion lira (about $75 million, per Reuters) in December 2024 for favoring its own ad exchange, and 355.1 million lira in July 2025 over its “Business Ads” designs.

• Total: The four fines add up to about 3.74 billion lira (TBR calculation).
• Biggest case: The December 2024 ad tech fine is about 70% of that total (TBR calculation).

Independent data help explain publishers’ concern. Pew Research Center tracked the browsing of 900 U.S. adults in March 2025. When a Google results page showed an AI summary, users clicked a regular result link on 8% of visits, compared with 15% when no summary appeared. They clicked a link inside the summary only 1% of the time, and they ended their browsing session 26% of the time, versus 16% without a summary.

• Click drop: 8% versus 15% means about 47% fewer clicks on result links (TBR calculation).
• Dead ends: Sessions ended about 63% more often after an AI summary (TBR calculation).

The traffic question has already hit U.S. markets: Reddit shares plunged 29% on Oct. 30 after weak guidance and a warning that Google’s AI search was cutting its traffic.

Pressure from other regulators

Turkey is not alone. The European Commission opened a formal antitrust case on Dec. 9, 2025, into whether Google used publishers’ content for AI Overviews and AI Mode, and YouTube videos for AI training, without fair pay or a real opt-out. Reuters reported in September that the Commission had asked publishers, in a questionnaire with an Aug. 28 deadline, whether they would use Google’s opt-out. Google has paid more than 10 billion euros in EU antitrust fines over nearly two decades, Reuters noted. The U.K. competition regulator ordered Google in June to let publishers keep their content out of its AI features.

Turkey’s interim measures stay in force while the investigation runs. Under Turkish law, a confirmed abuse of dominance can bring fines of up to 10% of a company’s annual gross revenue.

Sources

• Turkish Competition Authority: Investigation launched and interim measures introduced on Google (Nov. 2, 2026)
• Turkish Competition Authority: Daily fines imposed on Google (July 10, 2025)
• Reuters: Turkey fines Google $75 million (Dec. 13, 2024)
• Reuters: Turkey fines Google 482 million lira over hotel searches (June 10, 2024)
• Pew Research Center: Do people click on links in Google AI summaries?
• Reuters via Investing.com: EU regulators quiz publishers on Google’s AI search opt-out
• Reuters: EU launches antitrust probe into Google’s use of online content for AI (Dec. 9, 2025)