PENSKE MEDIA is suing Google for ‘Hurning’ publishers

Penske Media Corporation (PMC), Publisher behind Rolling Stone, Variety, Billboard, and several other leading entertainment and lifestyle outlets, have filed a lawsuit against Google and accusing the technological giant of harming the publisher with a summary of the news produced by AI.

In a lawsuit filed in the United States Federal Court, PMC believes that the new Google-powered AI search feature gives a summary of a short and concise article to users at the top of the search results-directly exploiting the work of unfair publishers.

According to the company, this feature reduces the traffic of the website by preventing readers clicking into the original story, stripping critical advertising publishers and subscription income.

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“Google AI feeds our journalism without returning value to the publisher which makes it,” said a PMC spokesman. “This practice damages all quality reporting ecosystems and places the future of independent media in risk.”

This legal step occurs when the tension between large technology and the media industry intensifies throughout the world.

Publishers have long argued that Google and other platforms have a disproportionate profit from the news content while the editorial space faces revenue decline.