Penske Media Files Suit Against Google Over AI overviews

Brett Tabkeon

Penske Media (owners of Rolling Stone, Billboard, Variety, etc.) filed a lawsuit against Google in federal court in Washington, D.C.

The claim is that Google’s “AI Overviews” (or nicknamed SOT: Slop On Top by marketers) which appear atop search results are using publishers original content without consent, and that these summaries are diverting traffic away from those publishers’ sites.

Penske alleges that over 20% of Google serps that link to its sites feature AIO and that revenue from traffic has crashed by more than a third from its peak.

Scrape or Die?

Penske contends that Google only includes a publisher’s website in search results if Google also has the ability to use their content in AI summaries:

“Penske, a family-owned media conglomerate led by Jay Penske and whose content attracts 120 million online visitors a month, said Google only includes publishers’ websites in its search results if it can also use their articles in AI summaries.“

In other words: Google allegedly ties inclusion in search to giving permission to generate overviews from their content. The lawsuit claims Google leverages its dominance in search (near 90% market share) to impose these terms.

Google’s response: AI Overviews are meant to enhance user experience, helping people find Search more helpful, discovering content; and that it will defend the claims as meritless.

This is the second major lawsuit for Google AI. In February Chegg sued Google in the first direct Google AI lawsuit.

The EconomicTimes Article states that Google responded on Saturday with:

Responding to Penske’s lawsuit, Google said on Saturday that AI overviews offer a better experience to users and send traffic to a wider variety of websites.

Unfortunatly, we have not found that to be within the realm of reality. We tracked nearly 100 major stories from websites, and over one thousand social media posts lamenting the low quality of Google AI search. Meanwhile, we have not found *any* articles outside of Googles control proposing that AIO is better than traditional search.