Google is under intense scrutiny for making contradictory statements about the health of the open web, even as publishers and industry critics are seeing issues with how it siphons content for its AI-powered services, arguably accelerating the same process. In a recent legal filing, Google admitted that “the open web is already in rapid decline”—a stance sharply at odds with its public reassurances the web is thriving at almost exactly the same time.
For years, Google has positioned itself as a champion of the open web, regularly touting the vitality and robustness of the digital ecosystem. However, in a legal battle over its advertising dominance, the company recently claimed the open web’s decline is so severe that breaking up its ad business would only accelerate damage, harming publishers who rely on open-web display ad revenue.
A few months earlier, top Google executives—including search SVP Nick Fox—had publicly argued the opposite on the AI Inside podcast, insisting that “from our point of view, the web is thriving” and that Google products aren’t to blame for falling web traffic. Overall, search volumes appear to be up, which is one reason why Google revenues have continued to climb. Still, there is some evidence click-throughs per search are declining.
Following widespread criticism, Google scrambled to clarify its statements, with a spokesperson telling Business Insider the legal filing was referring to “open-web display advertising” rather than the open web as a whole. Meanwhile, publishers are increasingly vocal about what they see as Google’s role in the rapid decline of the open web: It’s a major content thief.
Accusations of content ‘theft’
Publishers’ frustrations are boiling over. In August, the CEO of WalletHub, a major personal finance site, blocked 40,000 pages from Google’s indexing, accusing the tech giant of allowing AI-powered plagiarism and content theft. CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou charged Google has abandoned its founding mission of organizing information and instead turned to stealing it, urging other outlets to fight back by limiting Google’s access to their intellectual property.
“Imagine you’re a restaurant owner, and you get approached by the Mafia,” Papadimitriou said in an emailed statement to The Desk.
This outcry is not unique. In recent months, U.S. publishers—through organizations like the News/Media Alliance—have blasted Google’s AI Mode for “content theft,” arguing that AI-generated answers are siphoning both traffic and revenue from news sources. These publishers argue that users often get all the information they need directly from Google’s AI summaries, bypassing original content creators.
Speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference on Wednesday, a media heavy hitter waded into the fray: People Inc. CEO Neil Vogel said Google has so far refused to pay publishers for the content they create, while other big AI firms are ponying up, even if some believe they’re getting off too cheaply.
“Some AI shops are good actors. OpenAI is a good guy,” said Vogel. “The worst guy is Google.”
Commenting on Anthropic’s historic $1.5 billion settlement with book publishers, Vogel added that Google is a “bad actor.” (Even that settlement is subject to criticism, as U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup said he may have to hold his nose to approve it.)
Vogel was speaking during an onstage panel discussion about the future of digital media in the age of AI. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince, who was also on the panel, said AI firms‘ “answer engines” are making it difficult for other websites to drive traffic, and it’s a change from Google’s previous status as a “great patron” to the internet, when it ingested web-page content and linked out to relevant pages in response to search queries.
Google maintains its AI-powered search tools actually support publishers by creating “new opportunities for content and businesses to be discovered,” but mounting data shows the opposite: Traffic to publishers is falling sharply, and the median zero-click rate has hit as high as 80% when AI Overviews are presented. Critics allege that Google’s dominance not only undermines traditional publishing revenues but mutes the diversity of online voices, accelerating the decline of the open, accessible web, just as Google admitted behind closed doors, in court.
Google did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
