Overview
- Penske Media filed its case in U.S. federal court in Washington, D.C., alleging Google's AI Overviews illegally use its reporting and depress traffic to its sites.
- Reuters describes the action as the first major U.S. publisher lawsuit focused specifically on Google's AI-generated summaries.
- Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said AI Overviews make Search more useful and drive discovery to a wider range of websites, calling the claims meritless.
- At WIRED’s AI Power Summit in New York, Google executive Markham Erickson said users increasingly want contextual answers, while media leaders criticized traffic losses and exposure via required crawling.
- Chegg brought a related suit in February alleging AI Overviews undercut demand for original content, highlighting broader industry concerns over referrals and revenue.