Germany Strips AI Search of Its EU Liability Shield in World's First…

Germany's media regulator (ZAK) ruled that Google AI Overviews and Perplexity AI are content publishers, not neutral platforms, stripping them of EU liability protections under the Digital Services Act. The decision is immediately enforceable across the EU and sets a precedent for AI search products globally. If you're building an AI search or answer engine in Europe, you're now a publisher, not a platform—liable for defamation, copyright, and media plurality harm the moment you synthesise content into a new response. Germany just made that law; every other EU regulator will follow.