Google’s Artificial Intelligence-powered experiments in Search, including AI Overviews that provide instant summaries at the top of results pages, have drawn fresh legal scrutiny.
Penske Media Corporation, the parent company of Rolling Stone and The Hollywood Reporter, has filed a lawsuit claiming the feature diverts traffic from original publishers and cuts into their affiliate revenue, as per a reports.
According to the complaint, AI Overviews push direct links further down search results, discouraging users from visiting the original websites. Penske alleges that these summaries have caused a measurable drop in site visits, which in turn reduces advertising and affiliate earnings.
The lawsuit also contends that publishers have little choice as they must feed content into Google’s AI system or risk disappearing from search visibility altogether.
Google defends AI Search
At an AI summit in New York, Markham Erickson, Google’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, defended the company’s approach. In a statement to The Verge, Erickson said that user preferences are evolving, with audiences increasingly seeking contextual answers and summaries instead of simple factual answers and lists of links.
“We want a healthy ecosystem. The 10 blue links serve the ecosystem very well, and it was a simple value proposition. We’re not going to abandon that model. But user preferences, and what users want, is also changing. So, instead of factual answers and 10 blue links, they’re increasingly wanting contextual answers and summaries,” Erickson said.
“We want to be able to provide that, too, while at the same time, driving people back to content, valuable content, on the Internet,” the statement added.
Publishers push back
Despite Google’s defence, reports suggest that AI summaries are denting publisher traffic. Earlier this year, the News/Media Alliance criticised the AI feature, calling it a move that deprives publishers of both traffic and revenue and describing it as “the definition of theft.”
As Google continues integrating AI across its services, including its flagship Search, tensions with publishers over traffic, revenue, and content control are likely to intensify.
