Penske Media Corporation, the owner of publications such as Rolling Stone, Billboard, and Variety, has filed a lawsuit against Google in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The company claims that the tech giant’s AI-generated summaries use journalistic content without consent and reduce traffic to its websites.
This is reported by CNN .
The lawsuit is the first case where a major American publisher has taken Google (owned by Alphabet) to court over AI-generated summaries appearing at the top of search results. News organizations have been claiming for several months that Google’s new features, including “AI Overviews,” are diverting traffic from their websites, leading to a reduction in advertising and subscription revenue.
Penske Media, a family-owned media conglomerate led by Jay Penske, whose content attracts 120 million online visitors monthly, claims that Google only includes publishers’ websites in its search results on the condition that their articles are used in AI-generated summaries. Without such leverage, Penske argues, Google would have to pay publishers to reuse their work or use it to train its AI systems. The lawsuit notes that Google is able to impose such terms due to its dominant position in the search market, citing a federal court decision last year that the tech giant holds nearly 90% of the U.S. search market.
Penske Media has emphasized its responsibility to protect the future and integrity of digital media, stating that they are under threat due to Google’s current actions. The company said that around 20% of Google search queries referring to its sites now display “AI Overviews,” and this share is expected to grow. According to its data, Penske Media’s partnership revenue has dropped by more than a third from its peak by the end of 2024 due to the decline in search traffic.
Google, on the other hand, claims that AI Overviews make search more useful and encourage its use, creating new opportunities for content discovery. The company intends to defend itself against what it considers to be unfounded claims.
