Penske Media Company (PMC) filed a federal courtroom memorandum opposing Google’s movement to dismiss its antitrust lawsuit. The corporate argues that Google has damaged the longstanding premise of an internet ecosystem during which publishers allowed their content material to be crawled in change for receiving search site visitors in return.
PMC is the writer of twenty manufacturers like Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, and Rolling Stone.
Net Ecosystem
The PMC authorized submitting makes repeated references to the “elementary truthful change” the place Google sends site visitors in change for permitting them to crawl and index web sites, explicitly quoting Google’s expressions of assist for “the well being of the net ecosystem.”
And but there are some trade outsiders on social media who deny that there’s any understanding between Google and internet publishers, an idea that even Google doesn’t deny.
This idea dates to just about the start of Google and is usually understood by all internet employees. It’s embedded in Google’s Philosophy, expressed a minimum of way back to 2004:
“Google stands out as the solely firm on the earth whose acknowledged objective is to have customers depart its web site as rapidly as potential.”
In Might 2025 Google revealed a weblog publish the place they affirmed that sending customers to web sites remained their core objective:
“…our core objective stays the identical: to assist individuals discover excellent, authentic content material that provides distinctive worth.”
What’s related about that passage is that it’s framed inside the context of encouraging publishers to create prime quality content material and in change they are going to be thought-about for referral site visitors.
The idea of an internet ecosystem the place each side profit was mentioned by Google CEO Sundar Pichai in a June 2025 podcast interview by Lex Fridman the place Pichai mentioned that sending individuals to the human created internet in AI Mode was “going to be a core design precept for us.”
In response to a follow-up query referring to journalists who’re nervous about internet referrals, Sundar Pichai explicitly talked about the ecosystem and Google’s dedication to it.
Pichai responded:
“I believe information and journalism will play an essential position, you recognize, sooner or later we’re fairly dedicated to it, proper? And so I believe ensuring that ecosystem… The truth is, I believe we’ll be capable to differentiate ourselves as an organization over time due to our dedication there. So it’s one thing I believe you recognize I undoubtedly worth so much and as we’re designing we’ll proceed prioritizing approaches.”
This “elementary truthful change” serves because the baseline aggressive situation for his or her claims of coercive reciprocal dealing and illegal monopoly upkeep.
That baseline helps PMC argue:
- That Google modified the understood phrases of participation in search in a method publishers can’t refuse.
- And that Google used its dominance in search to impose these new phrases.
And regardless of that Google’s personal CEO expressed that sending individuals to web sites is a core design principal and there are a number of cases up to now and the current the place Google’s personal documentation refers to this reciprocity between publishers and Google, Google’s authorized response expressly denies that it exists.
The PMC doc states:
“Google …argues that no reciprocity settlement exists as a result of it has not “promised to ship” any search referral site visitors.”
Profound Penalties Of Google AI Search
PMC filed a federal courtroom memorandum in February 2026 opposing Google’s movement to dismiss its antitrust criticism. The criticism particulars Google’s use of its search monopoly to “coerce” publishers into offering content material for AI coaching and AI Overviews with out compensation.
The swimsuit argues that Google has pivoted from being a search engine (that sends site visitors to web sites) to a solution engine that removes the motivation for customers to click on to go to an internet site. The lawsuit claims that this modification harms the financial viability of digital publishers.
The submitting explains the implications of this modification:
“Google has shattered the longstanding discount that permits the open web to exist. The results for on-line publishers—to say nothing of the general public at massive—are profound.”
Google Is Utilizing Their Market Energy
The submitting claims that the collapse of the normal search ecosystem positions Google’s AI search system as coercive slightly than progressive, arguing that publishers should both enable AI to reuse their content material or danger shedding search visibility.
The authorized submitting alleges that Google’s generative AI competes straight with on-line publishers for person’s consideration, describing Google as cannibalizing writer’s site visitors, particularly alleging that Google is utilizing their “market energy” to take care of a state of affairs during which publishers can’t block the AI with out additionally negatively affecting what little search site visitors is left.
The memorandum portrays a bleak alternative provided by Google:
“Google’s search monopoly leaves publishers with no alternative: acquiesce—at the same time as Google cannibalizes the site visitors publishers depend on—or perish.”
It additionally describes the position of AI grounding performs in cannibalizing writer site visitors for its sole profit:
“By means of RAG, or “grounding,” Google makes use of, repackages, and republishes writer content material for show on Google’s SERP, cannibalizing the site visitors on which PMC relies upon.”
Enlargement Of Zero-Click on Search Outcomes And Site visitors Loss
The submitting claims AI solutions divert customers away from writer websites and diminish monetizable viewers visits. A number of elements of the submitting straight confronts Google with the very fact of diminished site visitors from search as a result of cannibalization of their content material.
The submitting alleges:
“Google reduces click on‑throughs to writer websites, will increase zero‑click on conduct, and diverts site visitors that publishers have to assist their promoting, affiliate, and subscription income.
…Google’s insinuation . . . that AI Overview isn’t getting in the best way of the ten blue hyperlinks and the site visitors going again to creators and publishers is simply 100% false . . . . [Users] are studying the overview and stopping there . . . . We see it.”
…The aim is to not facilitate click-throughs however to have customers devour PMC’s content material, repackaged by Google, straight on the SERP.”
Zero-click searches are described as a part of a multi-part course of during which publishers are injured by Google’s conduct. The submitting accuses Google of utilizing writer content material for coaching, grounding their AI on info, after which republishing it inside the zero-click AI search setting that both reduces or eliminates clicks again to PMC’s web sites.
Ought to Google Ship Extra Referral Site visitors?
All the things that’s described within the PMC submitting is the type of factor that nearly all on-line companies have been complaining about when it comes to site visitors losses on account of Google’s AI search surfaces. It’s the rationale why Lex Fridman particularly challenged Google’s CEO on the quantity of site visitors Google is sending to web sites.
