Google has insisted that its AI-generated search result overviews and summaries have not actually hurt traffic for publishers. The publishers disagree, and at least one is willing to go to court to prove the harm they claim Google has caused. Penske Media Corporation, the parent company of Rolling Stone and The Hollywood Reporter, sued Google on Friday over allegations that the search giant has used its work without permission to generate summaries and ultimately reduced traffic to its publications.
Penske’s argument is pretty simple: by showing an AI-generated summary of an article at the top of the page via Google’s AI Overview panel, users have little reason to click through to read the full article, resulting in dwindling traffic finding its way to the publisher’s platforms, which i