‘Bit damning': How Google decided to cut publishers out of AI search
While using website data to build a Google Search topped with artificial intelligence-generated answers, an Alphabet executive acknowledged in an internal document that there was an alternative way to do things: They could ask web publishers for permission, or let them directly opt out of being included.
But giving publishers a choice would make training AI models in search too complicated, the company concludes in the document, which was unearthed in the company's search antitrust trial. It said Google had a 'hard red line' and would require all publishers who wanted their content to show up in the search page to also be used to feed AI features. Instead of giving options, Google decided to 'silently update', with 'no public announcement' about how they were using publishers' data, according to the document, written by Chetna Bindra, a product management executive at Google Search. 'Do what we say, say what we do, but carefully.'
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