Penske Media sues Google over AI summaries, claims abuse of search monopoly

Penske Media Corp., the company behind media brands such as Rolling Stone and the Hollywood Reporter, has filed a lawsuit against Google LLC claiming that Google is abusing its monopoly in general search to coerce publishers into handing over their content for free in ways that bolster Google’s own artificial intelligence products.

The case is specifically focused on Google’s AI summaries, a feature now appearing at the top of Google searches that summarizes answers. Penske claims the summaries repurpose its journalism without permission, divert readers away from original articles, and unlawfully exploit its content to train and power Google’s AI models while cutting into the company’s traffic and revenue.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that Google conditions the sale of “search referral traffic” — the flow of users to publisher websites — on publishers also providing three other distinct products. Those are snippets Google republishes in its search results, articles and media for training its Gemini AI models, and content used for retrieval-augmented generation in AI Overviews.

According to Penske Media, the arrangement constitutes unlawful reciprocal dealing and monopoly leveraging under the Sherman Act, because publishers such as Penske Media cannot realistically opt out without losing critical traffic from the world’s dominant search engine.

Penske argues that Google’s use of AI summaries diverts users away from original reporting, reduces ad and affiliate revenues by suppressing click-throughs and unjustly enriches Google by allowing it to build and market AI features powered by third-party journalism.

The lawsuit sets out six counts: reciprocal dealing in violation of Sherman Act §1 and §2, unlawful monopoly leveraging, monopolization, attempted monopolization and common-law unjust enrichment.

“As a leading global publisher, we have a duty to protect PMC’s best-in-class journalists and award-winning journalism as a source of truth,” Penske Media Chief Executive Officer Jay Penske said in a statement reported by TechCrunch. “Furthermore, we have a responsibility to proactively fight for the future of digital media and preserve its integrity — all of which is threatened by Google’s current actions.”

Penske is seeking treble damages, a permanent injunction halting the alleged practices, restitution or disgorgement of profits earned from its content and attorneys’ fees. The company is also demanding a jury trial.

In response to the lawsuit, Google spokesperson José Castañeda told The Wall Street Journal that “With AI Overviews, people find search more helpful and use it more, creating new opportunities for content to be discovered” and that “every day, Google sends billions of clicks to sites across the web and AI Overviews send traffic to a greater diversity of sites.”

“We will defend against these meritless claims,” Castañeda added.

Penske’s lawsuit is not the first targeting Google over its use of AI summaries ahead of search results. Education technology company Chegg Inc. filed a suit in February that claimed the AI summaries ahead of search results have hurt the online education company’s traffic and revenue.

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