People Inc. CEO Neil Vogel accused Google of abusing its market power by using a single web crawler for both search indexing and AI training, making it impossible for publishers to block one without harming the other. Speaking at Cannes, Vogel said this forces publishers to choose between protecting their content from AI models and maintaining search traffic, which drives advertising and affiliate revenue. He called the practice "an incredible abuse of market power."
The criticism highlights a growing tension between publishers and tech giants over AI training data. While some publishers have sought to block AI crawlers, search traffic remains a critical revenue source. Vogel noted that People Inc., formerly Dotdash Meredith, previously partnered with Cloudflare to adopt a permission-based model for AI crawlers, blocking them by default.
Vogel said that once publishers began blocking crawlers, tech companies responded. "Before that, everyone was saying, 'Oh, well, we're good. You don't have to block us because we don't even need you.' And then the minute you block them, your phone rings," he said. "Everybody calls, because it turns out everybody needs us."
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Vogel suggested the relationship is worsening. "We would love to do something productive with them, but we're probably heading towards more confrontation than productivity with those guys," he said. The standoff could affect how AI companies access publisher content moving forward.
Some publishers may still tolerate existing arrangements if search traffic remains valuable. The outcome could depend on whether regulators view a unified crawler as anticompetitive behavior.