Türkiye’s Competition Authority (Rekabet Kurumu) has opened an investigation into Google over the AI-generated summaries and AI Mode in its search engine, and has imposed an interim measure to protect news publishers, several Turkish outlets reported on Monday.
The authority is the national competition regulator, comparable to a competition or antitrust commission in other countries. According to Diken and Karar, the investigation covers Alphabet Inc., Google Ireland Limited, Google LLC, Google International LLC and Google Reklamcılık ve Pazarlama Ltd. Şti. It will examine whether the services known in Turkish as "Yapay Zekâ Önizlemeleri" (AI Overviews) and "Yapay Zekâ Modu" (AI Mode) breach Article 6 of Law No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition, which prohibits the abuse of a dominant position.
Concern over traffic to news sites
The authority’s concern is that users can get information from AI summaries in search results without visiting news websites, which could reduce those sites’ traffic and advertising revenue, Yeni Şafak, BirGün and the technology site LOG reported. According to Karar and BirGün, the probe will also look at how content licensing works and whether publishers can refuse to have their content used in these systems.
What the interim measure says
Under the interim measure, Google may not require news publishers to be included in its AI systems, and publishers can decide whether their content is used in AI summaries without risking their visibility in search results, Diken, BirGün and Yeni Şafak reported. BirGün and Yeni Şafak said the measure is meant to protect the digital media sector and publishers’ economic rights, not to restrict the development of AI services.
No decision date or compliance deadline was given in the reports. If a violation is found at the end of the investigation, Google could face an administrative fine and be ordered to end the practices, Diken and Karar reported.
Earlier call from Turkish outlets
Diken and Karar noted that in March 2025 a group of nine Turkish news outlets, including BirGün, T24 and Medyascope, issued a joint statement asking the authority to act over falling traffic from Google Discover and Google News.
Both outlets also cited Chartbeat data showing that organic Google search traffic to 2,576 news sites worldwide fell by 33% between November 2024 and November 2025.
Sources
- Rekabet Kurumu’ndan Google’ın yapay zeka özetlerine tedbir (Diken)
- Google’ın yapay zekâ özetlerine Rekabet Kurumu soruşturması: Haber sitelerinin trafiği mercek altında (Karar)
- Rekabet Kurumu’ndan Google’ın yapay zeka özetleri hakkında geçici tedbir kararı (BirGün)
- Google’ın yapay zeka özetlerine ‘adil paylaşım’ freni: Rekabet Kurumu harekete geçti (Yeni Şafak)
Photo: Андрей Романенко / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
