April 22, 2026
Tokyo – Concerned that AI-powered search engines are scraping articles and other content from news organizations without permission, the Japan Newspaper Association on Monday called on the government to develop a system to prevent AI from using such content without permission.
The association, also known as the Japan Newspaper Association, argues that news organizations cannot block their content, including news articles, from being used in Google LLC’s AI search. For this reason, the association called on the government to quickly introduce a system that would allow US companies to refuse the use of their content.
In a statement incorporating the request, the association said AI search services are increasingly pulling content from news organizations that don’t know what’s going on, or ignoring the wishes of news organizations that don’t want their content used. The statement argues that news organizations’ revenues are threatened by the rise of AI search, which is “free riding” on their content and infringing copyrights.
When Google indexes content, it doesn’t differentiate between content for regular searches and content for AI searches, making it impossible for news organizations to block only AI searches. The association views this as a serious problem.
“Leveraging our dominant position in the search market, [Google] “We are forcing our company to provide content that is suspected to be an abuse of its superior position under antitrust law in AI search,” the statement said, calling for a prompt response to this issue.
The Fair Trade Commission began an investigation into the matter in December, alleging that Google had used articles from news organizations without permission. Britain’s competition watchdog has also proposed remedial measures for AI searches targeting Google. Based in part on this proposal, the association advocated for blocking the use of content by AI search and taking steps to improve the transparency of content use by such services.
