Penske Media, the owner of Rolling Stone, Billboard and Variety magazines, sued Google on September 12, alleging that the AI is using journalistic material without consent and reducing traffic to media websites, Reuters reports.
Penske Media’s lawsuit is the first time a major American publisher has sued Google over AI-generated short reviews that are now displayed at the top of search results. News organizations have argued for months that the new features are driving traffic away from their sites, leading to a decline in advertising and subscription revenue.
Penske, a family-owned media conglomerate led by Jay Penske, whose content attracts 120 million online visitors a month, shows publishers’ websites in search results only if it can also use their articles in AI-generated annotations. Without that leverage, Google would have to pay publishers for the right to republish their work or use it to train its AI systems, the company’s lawsuit says. The company added that Google was able to impose such conditions because of its dominance in search, citing a court ruling last year that the tech giant owns nearly 90% of the U.S. search market.
The company said that about 20% of Google searches that link to its sites now show AI reviews — and that share is expected to grow. Its platform revenue has declined by more than a third since its peak in late 2024, primarily due to a drop in search traffic.
In response to Penske’s lawsuit, Google said that AI reviews offer a better user experience and drive traffic to a broader range of websites.
Earlier this month, a judge ruled in favor of Google in an antitrust case, ruling that the company would not have to sell its Chrome browser as part of its efforts to create competition in the search space, a move that disappointed some publishers and industry groups.