Google’s AI Doesn’t Ask, It Takes

Court documents, revealed by Bloomberg, have shared some very interesting information about Google. It seems like Google decided against giving publishers choice to opt out of AI Search. The company forced them to accept AI scraping, kind of.

Google opted to strong-arm publishers into accepting its AI Search scraping

It was revealed that Google didn’t want to give publishers the choice to keep their content out of AI Search results. Why? Well, because it’s “evolving into a space for monetisation.”

The documents reveal that Google did consider offering publishers more control over how their website data would be used in AI Search features, but ultimately opted against it.

The document in question was written by Google Search executive, Chetna Bindra, and was released during the US antitrust trial into Google’s online search monopoly. That was the trial that Google lost last year, and the remedies trial wrapped up recently.

Google’s practices are detrimental to websites that they source from

Needless to say, Google has vast amounts of data for AI use due to Google Search. That instantly gives the company an edge over its rivals, like OpenAI, for example. At the same time, Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode can be detrimental to the websites they source from. Why? Well, because they’re reducing clickthroughs. That instantly incentivizes publishers to keep their content out of AI summaries and related features… but they don’t really have a choice in the matter. That is the problem.

The documents reveal that Google considered a “hard red line” which would allow publishers to prevent Google’s AI models from referencing their data in real time, but not opt out of being used to train features like AI Overviews generally.

A different option was labeled as “likely unstable”, and it suggested that no additional controls should be added. It stated that publishers can opt out of being indexed on Search entirely “if not satisfied.”

It is worth noting that Google offered a way for publishers to opt out of AI training back in 2023. The thing is, that doesn’t apply to search-specific AI products like AI Overviews. The only way they can avoid it is to opt out of being crawled by Googlebot, which basically stops their website of being indexed by Search altogether… and for many, that would be a suicide.

The company decided to “silently update” the information about publisher controls

Google decided to “silently update” the information about publisher controls when AI Overview rolled out last year. The company made “no public announcement” for that. 

Google noted that this document represents an early list of options it was considering as AI search was evolving. The company notes that it does not reflect the decisions it ultimately made.

The company said that “Publishers have always controlled how their content is made available to Google as AI models have been built into Search for many years, helping surface relevant sites and driving traffic to them.” That’s something a Google spokesperson said to The Verge.