Rolling Stone owner Penske Media sues Google over AI Summaries
It could reshape how AI summaries appear in search results, or whether they appear at all.
Google’s AI summaries are facing their biggest legal test yet. Penske Media Corporation (PMC), the parent company behind Rolling Stone, Billboard, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, Vibe, and Artforum, has filed a lawsuit accusing Google of illegally using publishers’ content to power its AI Overviews feature in Search.
PMC’s lawsuit is the first to directly target Google and its parent company, Alphabet, over this issue, though it’s hardly the first time AI has landed in court. Writers and publishers have already gone after OpenAI and other AI companies over copyright, but this marks a new front in the fight: Google’s role in reshaping how people consume news through AI-generated search answers.
The Heart of the Dispute
Jay Penske, CEO of PMC, framed the lawsuit as a fight for journalism itself.
“As a leading global publisher, we have a duty to protect PMC’s best-in-class journalists and award-winning journalism as a source of truth,” he said in a statement. “Furthermore, we have a responsibility to proactively fight for the future of digital media and preserve its integrity—all of which is threatened by Google’s current actions.”
The company argues that Google is abusing its dominance in search by forcing publishers into a new bargain: allow your content to be indexed for search, and you must also accept it being repurposed into AI summaries. The lawsuit claims this arrangement “cannibalizes or preempts” the clicks publishers rely on, while leaving them no real option to opt out.
PMC says it has already seen a “significant decline in clicks” since Google rolled out AI Overviews, translating into falling ad revenue, fewer subscriptions, and weakened affiliate sales—revenue streams that depend on readers actually visiting a publisher’s website.
Ogbonda Chivumnovu
Google, though, is standing firm. Spokesperson José Castañeda said AI Overviews make search “more helpful” and argued that they actually create “new opportunities for content to be discovered.”
“Every day, Google sends billions of clicks to sites across the web, and AI Overviews send traffic to a greater diversity of sites,” Castañeda said. “We will defend against these meritless claims.”
Still, the lawsuit notes, Google hasn’t provided “credible competing information” to prove that traffic isn’t dropping for publishers.
Why it matters
At stake is the very model that has underpinned the internet for decades: the exchange of access for traffic. Publishers let Google crawl their content, and in return, Google sends them search referrals. PMC argues that AI Overviews upend that balance, effectively keeping users inside Google’s ecosystem and cutting publishers out of the loop.
And this fight comes at a pivotal moment. Google just dodged a major antitrust bullet in the U.S.—a judge found that the company maintained a monopoly in online search but stopped short of breaking up its businesses, partly because of rising competition from AI. Now, Penske’s case could test whether those same AI products become the company’s next antitrust headache.
If Penske wins, it could reshape how AI summaries appear in search results—or whether they appear at all. If Google prevails, publishers may have to rethink how they survive in a search world where fewer clicks ever leave Google.
One thing is certain: with publishers’ traffic and revenue on the line, this fight is only just beginning.
Kelechi Edeh
