The organization representing major news publishers in the United States criticized Google’s new AI Mode, which replaces standard search results with a chatbot-style interface.
According to a statement, the News/Media Alliance argued that this feature is “taking away” both website traffic and revenue from publishers.
At the Google I/O event, the company revealed that AI Mode would be available to all users in the US.
This feature appears in a new tab within the Search function. When users type in a question, AI Mode provides an AI-generated answer along with a list of relevant links.
Danielle Coffey, the CEO of the News/Media Alliance, stated in the announcement, “Links were the last valuable aspect of search that provided traffic and revenue for publishers.
Now, Google is essentially stealing content without giving anything back, which is the very definition of theft. The Department of Justice needs to take action to stop one company from dominating the internet.”
Recently, an internal document made public during Google’s antitrust trial revealed that the company chose not to ask publishers for permission to use their content in its AI search features.
Instead, publishers can only completely opt out of search results if they wish to prevent their work from being included in AI features.
Liz Reid, head of Google Search, mentioned during her testimony that allowing publishers to opt out of specific features would lead to “huge complexity.”
She explained that if a publisher wanted to participate in one feature but not another, it wouldn’t work. “We would essentially need to create a different model for every single feature on the page,” Reid said.
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