The Polish antitrust watchdog suspects Google is abusing its market position when it negotiates content payments.
Google is suspected of abusing its dominant market position in negotiations with domestic media publishers over content payments by the Polish antitrust watchdog.
The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, known by its Polish abbreviation UOKiK, has accused Google of failing to provide publishers with the appropriate data for them to assess offers, leading to an information imbalance, which stopped them from negotiating fairly for payments regarding content.
UOKiK President Tomasz Chrostny said in a statement that “big tech companies cannot place themselves above the law”, and a lack of data meant negotiations became misleading and skewed towards Google imposing terms.
In Poland, copyright law has determined since 2024 that online platforms must negotiate payments with publishers instead of simply scraping and regurgitating online articles without financial compensation.
The maximum fine for the abuse of a dominant market position is 10% of a company’s turnover.
A Google spokesperson told Affiliate Leaders: “Google remains the only platform with a structured approach to remunerating news publishers at scale. We have licensing deals with more than 5,500 European publications, including over 70 in Poland. We are reviewing the text of today’s UOKiK decision.”
Google pointed out it has signed over 5,500 agreements with publishers across 26 countries, which covers around 75% of news snippets shown to EU users within discover, news, and search.
The UOKiK is launching an investigation into the claims, which will be separate from the US antitrust disputes in which Google was found to hold monopolistic powers in online search and search advertising – a ruling the tech giant has appealed.
The regulator stressed the probe is also entirely separate from the EU investigation, which opened in December 2025, looking into whether Google used publishers’ content within its AI services, such as AI overviews, without proper compensation or giving them the ability to object.
Google is facing regulatory scrutiny in Poland and across Europe. In 2024, Google was sued by price comparison company Ceneo, owned by Polish e-commerce group Allegro, over claims of anti-competitive behaviour for zł2.33bn (Polish (PLN) zlotys, equivalent to £429.70m) in damages.
The French competition authority also ordered Meta to re-enter conversations with media groups to propose a payment plan for unpaid content use fees, illustrating a growing dispute between the journalist and publisher industry and Google.
