Key Points
- A federal judge has tossed a lawsuit brought by Variety owner Penske and education tech venture Chegg over Google’s use of their content to train artificial intelligence-based products.
- Penske argued Google’s practices reduced referral traffic and revenue, but a judge ultimately determined that traffic was never promised as a trade-off for allowing AI robots to train on their content.
- The case was being closely watched by smaller, independent publishers to see if a legal precedent would be set, so they could seek redress from a court over Google’s predatory search and AI practices.
A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed by technology company Chegg and publisher Penske Media Group that accused search engine giant Google of using publisher content to train its artificial intelligence programs in a way that deprived the companies of search referral traffic and, ultimately, advertising revenue.
In his order, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said the companies had not established that Google was required to provide traffic to their websites in exchange for using their information to train other services, including AI-generated search answers that have become more-prominent in Google’s search products.
Penske — which owns popular entertainment trade publications like Variety, Billboard, Deadline Hollywood and the Hollywood Reporter — alleged Google abused its dominance in search by effectively requiring publishers to allow their content to appear in AI Overviews if they wanted to remain indexed in traditional search results.
Chegg, a technology company focused on the education space, joined the lawsuit last year, alleging many of the same issues.
Both companies argued the arrangement reduced traffic to their websites and hurt revenue while allowing Google to use publisher content without compensation.
“Plaintiffs have pleaded only that they have an ‘expectation’ that Google will send them search traffic if they make their content available for free,” Mehta wrote. “But an expectation is not an agreement. It is simply how a general search engine works.”
Mehta also rejected the publishers’ reciprocal-dealing argument, finding they had not demonstrated negotiated terms, mutual commitments or another agreement establishing an exchange of publisher content for Google search traffic.
It wasn’t clear if Penske or Chegg planned to appeal the judge’s order.
During the case, Google denied any wrongdoing with respect to its search engine answers and didn’t directly address the issue of using news and educational content to train its products. The company began testing a new program that pays some publishers for the privilege of licensing their content to train AI-generated search answers; some smaller outlets are earning less than $1,000 per month through the program, which isn’t enough to replace their lost advertising revenue.
Mehta acknowledged the broader economic concerns raised by the companies, saying the court was not “unsympathetic” to publishers, journalists, educators and other online creators whose content is used and repurposed without compensation.
But the judge said existing antitrust law cannot substitute for legislative action addressing economic harm stemming from technological innovation.
The case was being closely watched by smaller, independent publishers — including Solano Media, the parent company of The Desk — to see if the case might set a legal precedent by which they could seek redress from a court as Google’s AI-based products siphon away direct traffic that create significant barriers to financially support their operations.
Three years ago, an update to Google’s search results, called the Helpful Content Update, penalized many small publications by lowering their placement in Google’s search results. Some publishers complained that blogs and website written entirely by artificial intelligence robots were stealing their content and ranking higher in Google, with many of those publications using Google’s own advertising tools to generate money.
Google ultimately hosted a summit for independent bloggers and outlets at its headquarters in Mountain View, with some executives admitting the Helpful Content Update resulted in lower traffic to their websites. One executive told publishers there was nothing they could do to correct the matter, saying it was based on algorithmic changes that were too complicated to correct, according to one website owner who attended the meeting.
A few websites ultimately closed as a result of the Helpful Content Update, with publishers saying the loss in traffic led to a substantial drop in advertising and affiliate sales revenue that made it too onerous for them to continue their business.
