News/Media Alliance calls Google's AI Mode 'theft'

The News/Media Alliance took aim at Google today after the tech company's announcement at its I/O showcase that AI Mode will be rolling out to all US search users. This feature more closely integrates an AI chatbot into Google search. Ostensibly, AI Mode can help people get better answers to their queries, but it also serves to keep users on a Google property rather than clicking through to get information from other publications.

"Links were the last redeeming quality of search that gave publishers traffic and revenue. Now Google just takes content by force and uses it with no return, the definition of theft," said News/Media Alliance President and CEO Danielle Coffey. "The DOJ remedies must address this to prevent continued domination of the internet by one company."

This isn't the first time the organization has fired shots at Google; it filed an amicus brief earlier this month looking for remedy in the antitrust case about Google's monopoly control over search. The group argued that publishers should be able to opt out of letting search engines use their content for retrieval augmented generation.

Google has also taken an aggressive stance toward publishers as it develops more AI-driven services. The company's recent attitude can be seen in Bloomberg's discovery of an internal document showing that the company decided not to give publishers a choice to opt out of AI training if they wanted their material to appear in search results.

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