News Media Alliance, the trade association for some of the US’s biggest news publishers including Gannett, Hearst and Tribune Publishing, has criticised Google’s expanded AI search mode, saying the new feature will “deprive” publishers of traffic and revenue.
In a statement, Danielle Coffey, the CEO of the Alliance, said Google was “taking content by force” and using it without compensation, describing this as “theft”.
The criticism follows internal documents disclosed during an antitrust trial, which showed that Google had not given publishers the option to opt out of including their content in AI features, meaning the only way to avoid them is to opt out entirely.
A Google search head said during testimony that allowing opt-outs on an individual basis would be too complex.