Overview

• In a Washington antitrust filing, Google said breaking up its ad business would worsen the decline tied to open‑web display advertising and harm publishers.
• After criticism, Google said the quoted phrase was cherry‑picked and referred specifically to open‑web display ads rather than the broader web.
• People Inc. CEO Neil Vogel labeled Google “the worst” on content use, noting firms like OpenAI and Anthropic have struck payment deals, while Google declined comment.
• Industry data cited by Fortune reports zero‑click rates reaching about 80% when AI Overviews appear, and People Inc. says Google Search referrals fell from roughly 65% to the high‑20% range.
• WalletHub’s CEO blocked 40,000 pages from Google’s index over alleged AI‑powered plagiarism, but publishers say blocking Google is risky because the same crawler powers Search and its AI systems.