Penske Media, which operates and owns Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, Variety and others has sued Google over its AI Overviews. The lawsuit says Google used its content while resulting in less overall traffic for them and a drop in affiliate income.
Reuters reported, "News organizations have for months said the new features, including Google's "AI Overviews," siphon traffic away from their sites, eroding advertising and subscription revenue." Penske said in its complaint that about 20% of Google search results with a link to one of its sites include AI Overviews and that percentage has been rising.
Penske also said revenue on its sites from affiliate links for online shopping have dropped by more than a third since the end of 2024, which it attributed to decreased traffic from Google. “Siphoning and discouraging user traffic to PMC’s and other publishers’ websites in this manner will have profoundly harmful effects on the overall quality and quantity of the information accessible on the internet,” the complaint alleges, using the acronym for Penske Media Corp.
"We have a responsibility to proactively fight for the future of digital media and preserve its integrity – all of which is threatened by Google's current actions," Penske said.
Here is the PDF of the complaint, if you want to read through it all. The other lawsuit we saw against Google was from Chegg in February.
“With AI Overviews, people find Search more helpful and use it more, creating new opportunities for content to be discovered. We will defend against these meritless claims." Google Spokesperson Jose Castaneda said.
Markham Erickson, Vice President, Government Affairs and Public Policy at Google The Verge (hat tip @glenngabe):
So, I don’t want to speak about the specifics of the lawsuit, but I can speak to our philosophy here, which is, look, we want a healthy ecosystem. The 10 blue links serve the ecosystem very well, and it was a simple value proposition. We provided links that directed users free of charge to billions of publications around the world. We’re not going to abandon that model. We think that there’s use for that model. It’s still an important part of the ecosystem.But user preferences, and what users want, is also changing. So, instead of factual answers and 10 blue links, they’re increasingly wanting contextual answers and summaries. We want to be able to provide that, too, while at the same time, driving people back to content, valuable content, on the Internet. Where that valuable content is for users, is shifting. And so it’s a dynamic space. Ultimately, our goal is to ensure that we have an overall healthy ecosystem.
And there is this :(
Posted this late yesterday. An interesting quote from a Google VP about users increasingly wanting summaries over links but links are still an important of the ecosystem... https://t.co/l0ijGfIHW9
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) September 16, 2025
Here is Jason Kint on this lawsuit:
The core claim: Google is abusing its search monopoly to force pubs to hand over content - not just for traditional search indexing but to feed its AI. Google then repurposes it to substitute them with its own services breaking the fundamental bargain of the open web. /2 pic.twitter.com/uv2W3UA16s
— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) September 14, 2025
Plaintiffs explain what makes search traffic unique as a market leveraging DC opinion to explain intentionality. General Search Engine is a gateway to the rest of the open web and the DC District Court ruled that Google has illegally maintained a monopoly in that market. /4 pic.twitter.com/pPGtfqsQ7D
— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) September 14, 2025
On to stage 2. PMC says Google’s behavior is unlawful reciprocal dealing - forcing a tie between services to reinforce its monopoly.
— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) September 14, 2025
In lay terms Google is saying: “Let us use your content for AI or we’ll demote you in Search.” /7 pic.twitter.com/2lLm4cDQFB
And now this complaint was clearly being finalized up until the last week. It includes not only reporting by Digiday here on DCN's research as to the impact of Google AI Overviews and AI Mode on publishers of all types... /9 pic.twitter.com/tzmFDj7FTX
— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) September 14, 2025
PMC outlines three forms of coerced content usage:
— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) September 14, 2025
(1) Republishing in snippets
(2) Training LLMs
(3) Repurposing for RAG
All tied to access to search traffic - which Google monopolizes.
This bundling strategy, PMC argues, is illegal under antitrust law. /11 pic.twitter.com/JVBJR5GNrF
PMC calls its content a “golden corpus” for AI - meticulously researched and edited, making it ideal to train generative AI outputs.
— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) September 14, 2025
But that value, PMC says, comes from massive investment - tens of millions/year in real journalism. Google pays $0 for it through the tie. /13 pic.twitter.com/Yr6b7hskjW
Wall Street Journal has a report out on this lawsuit so including a link here. I’ll try to drop in additional coverage as it hits my radar. /16 https://t.co/QQHf7Ado6f
— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) September 14, 2025
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
