Japan Fair Trade Commission Launches Probe into AI Search Engines’ Use of News Articles

The Yomiuri Shimbun

16:57 JST, December 25, 2025

The Japan Fair Trade Commission announced Wednesday that it has launched an investigation regarding how search engines that use generative AI produce answers.

There is a concern that tech companies are allowing their AI programs to generate answers using information from news articles without permission from media organizations.

The JFTC believes some companies might be violating the Antimonopoly Law through such means as by abusing their superior bargaining positions. The JFTC aims to compile a report and make effective recommendations for solving the problem.

“It has been pointed out that companies that have search engines with generative AI are using news articles without permission from media organizations and generating answers,” said JFTC Secretary General Hiroo Iwanari. “It has become necessary to examine how it effects competition.”

Google LLC, Microsoft Corp., LY Corp., Perplexity, OpenAI and Anthropic PBC are among the companies that will be subject to the investigation.

When a user asks a question to AI, the AI will summarize relevant information it finds online and generate an answer.

During its search for answers, tech companies have allowed AI to access articles on news organizations’ websites and other services without permission, which is seen as a problem.

News organizations generate income by showing advertisers how many times their websites are accessed. If AI generates answers by summarizing those articles, there are concerns that fewer people will access the actual news sites. As a result, news organizations might not receive fair compensation.

The JFTC acknowledges the possibility that such an act by those search engine operators and other similar businesses constitutes an abuse of their superior bargaining position, meaning they are using their position to put others at a disadvantage, as well as interference with a competitor’s business.

In 2023, a JFTC report pointed out that when a tech giant, such as Google, sets the price for using news organizations’ articles extremely low or allows free access to them, the company is at risk of violating the Antimonopoly Law by abusing its superior bargaining position.

The JFTC decided to launch the investigation this time based on the current state of the market, which has been going through changes since the arrival of AI search engines.