Global media giants are reportedly considering blocking Google as the\ntech company\u2019s shift towards an AI-powered search platform causes\ninternet traffic to collapse. According to the Wall Street Journal,\ncompanies with plans to restrict Google\u2019s access include Reddit, USA\nToday, Reuters, Politico, The Economist, and People Inc.\u00a0Some of these\nmedia firms are even willing to \u2018disappear\u2019 from Google\u2019s search results\nrather than continue to surrender their data without receiving traffic\nin return.<\/p>\n
Reddit intends to prevent Google from displaying posts from the\nworld\u2019s largest forum site. This development comes as Reddit and Google\nare negotiating the renewal of a licensing deal worth US$60 million per\nyear, which was signed in 2024. The licence gave Google access to train\nits AI models on human conversations, but Reddit is now realising that\nGoogle\u2019s AI products are using this conversational data without driving\nusers back to the Reddit platform.<\/p>\n
USA Today, one of the largest media conglomerates in the United\nStates, is also considering blocking Google if organic traffic continues\nto plummet. Data from Semrush indicates that organic traffic from Google\nto the USA Today website has been halved in the past year. Other major\noutlets have seen sharp declines, with Politico down 23 percent, CNN\nfalling 25 percent, and Business Insider collapsing by 85 percent. \u2018It\u2019s\ntime to fight back and say enough is enough,\u2019 said USA Today CEO Mike\nReed.<\/p>\n
Google does provide publishers with the flexibility to restrict how\ntheir content is used and scraped by its search engine. If a publisher\nblocks their content from being used to train the Gemini chatbot, that\ncontent also disappears from AI Overviews in Google Search. As a more\nextreme measure, publishers can implement a \u2018noindex\u2019 tag on their\nwebsites, which removes them from Google entirely, making them\naccessible only via direct web address.<\/p>\n
The situation has drawn scrutiny from the UK\u2019s Competition and\nMarkets Authority, which has ordered Google to allow publishers to block\ntheir content from AI features without negatively impacting their\nposition in traditional search results. A study by the Pew Research\nCenter found that 15 percent of users click on links in search results\nwhen AI Overviews are absent, but that figure drops to 8 percent when AI\nOverviews appear. Links within Google\u2019s AI summaries are clicked on in\nonly about 1 percent of all searches. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince\npreviously warned that AI summarisation features are destroying the\nbusiness models that support the internet, noting that 56 percent of\ninternet traffic now comes from bots, not humans.<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/google-faces-potential-block-as-global-media-giants-revolt-over-ai-search-1784890308", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }