People Inc CEO Accuses Google of Exploiting Publisher Content for AI

Neil Vogel, CEO of People Inc., has publicly accused Google of exploiting publisher content to fuel its AI products, describing the company as a 'bad actor' and the 'worst' offender in content theft. Vogel explained that Google uses a single crawler to both index content for search and to harvest data for AI training, a practice that limits publishers' ability to block data scraping without losing search traffic, which has dramatically declined from about 65% to less than 30% of People Inc.'s site visits. To counteract this, some publishers, including People Inc., are using technologies like Cloudflare to block non-paying AI crawlers, prompting major AI providers to negotiate content deals, signaling a potential shift toward licensing agreements in the industry. Vogel emphasized that while People Inc. has grown its audience and revenue, it is unfair for Google to use their content to compete against them without compensation. The dispute reflects broader tensions between media companies and tech giants as AI integration deepens, with parallels drawn to previous conflicts over copyright and revenue sharing in digital content. This ongoing conflict underscores the challenges publishers face in maintaining control and fair compensation as AI technologies evolve.