• by Ray Schultz , May 28, 2024

Google’s new AI Overviews offering is drawing heated criticism for its perceived impact on publishers. 

The New/Media Alliance has written to the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, urging them to investigate Google’s “monopolistic” expansion through generativeAI. 

Google has “steadily introduced more and more detailed snippets’ of publishers’ content, until it reached the point of misappropriation,” the letter alleges. “Not only has this misappropriation protected Google’s monopoly in search, it has also starved publishers of traffic by eliminating consumers’ incentive to click-through to view publishers’ content.”

Moreover, “Google has now announced plans to deploy its GAI products nationwide,” the letter continues. “The prominent placement of AI Overviews at the top of Google’s search results page will reduce click through to publishers’ websites even further and thus further strengthen Google’s monopoly.”

The result: “Google’s AI Overviews will significantly reduce publishers’ ability to monetize their content through advertising, subscriptions, and affiliate links, and instead drive that monetization directly to Google,” the letter adds. 

 “AI companies and news publications should coexist, but one-sided, forced offerings without the ability to opt out does not achieve that goal,” says Danielle Coffey, president and CEO of the News/Media Alliance. “Google claims that this new product will result in increased traffic, but one of many studies estimates that 90% of users will never leave Google’s search results page.”