Technologies

Google’s AI Overviews ‘Misconduct’ Undermines Publishers Who Create Content, Lawsuit Says

Penske Media, which publishes Rolling Stone, Billboard, ArtForum and others, says that AI Overviews in Google search stymie their traffic, undercut their revenue and mean less content for consumers.

Penske Media, which owns publications including Rolling Stone, Variety and Billboard, is suing Google, alleging that the search giant is illegally using their content and that of other publishers to fill out the AI Overviews that have become a fixture at the top of Google search results.

In a lawsuit filed Friday in US District Court for the District of Columbia, Penske argues that Google’s «misconduct» through its monopoly in online search has coerced publishers to acquiesce to misappropriation of their content, diverting readers away from publishers’ own sites and depriving them of the ability to earn money from content created by their journalists.

«It is reasonably foreseeable that Google’s forced entry into the online publishing output market will result in less traffic to other online publishers, less revenue to the online publishers that actually generate their own content, and, as a result, less online publishing content for consumers,» Penske’s complaint says.

In 2024, that same district court ruled that Google illegally protects its search monopoly. Earlier this month, Judge Amit Mehta issued the penalty finding in that case, saying that the company must share some of its search data with competitors.

Google on Monday pushed back against Penske’s lawsuit, saying that it is providing a valuable service.

«Every day, Google sends billions of clicks to sites across the web, and AI Overviews send traffic to a greater diversity of sites,» said José Castañeda, a policy communications manager at Google. «We will defend against these meritless claims.»

Penske didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The company also publishes The Hollywood Reporter, Indiewire, WWD (Women’s Wear Daily), ArtNews, ArtForum and others.

For decades, there’s been a mutual relationship between online publishers and Google. By indexing sites across the internet, the search giant can deliver up-to-date and relevant information for people’s queries. In exchange for letting Google — which has a nearly 90% share of the search market — crawl their sites, publishers get traffic through those search results, as long as people have reason to click through.

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With the advent of generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, however, that relationship is changing. Instead of you having to take the time to scour through lists of links, and then read through a selection of articles and webpages, you get a neatly synthesized summary in seconds that combines information from the AI tools’ training data and directly from the web.

A wide spectrum of publishers and authors has contended that AI companies trained their AI models without proper licensing and are profiting from high-quality human-made content. For that reason, some have sued OpenAI, Perplexity, Anthropic, Microsoft and Google. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

Meanwhile, data shows that whenever AI Overviews appear in search, there is a noticeable drop in clickthrough rate to the source material. Google claims that AI sends «higher quality clicks» to sites, meaning those visitors stay on those sites longer with more engagement.

The outcome of the Penske lawsuit will likely have significant implications for publishers and AI companies, including Google.

«If Penske wins, it would likely lead to platforms needing to negotiate licensing deals with publishers for the right to include summaries in search or overview features,» said Robert Rosenberg, an intellectual property partner at Moses Singer, a New York-based firm.

A ruling might also dictate what is considered «transformative» work — that is, not subject to copyright protections — or could lead to further regulatory pressure on Google, Rosenberg said. «This case highlights how dominant platforms can impose their own terms because of their scale.»

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Dec. 25 #662

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Dec. 25, No. 662.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle has a holiday theme, and if you know a certain Christmas carol, you’ll quickly determine which words to hunt down. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Carolers count.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Five golden rings.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

RIMS, HIMS, MARS, CHIME, CHIMES, MADS, DATE, DIAL, WAIL

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

LORDS, MAIDS, SWANS, LADIES, PIPERS, DRUMMERS

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is CHRISTMASDAYS. To find it, look for the C that’s three letters down on the far-left row, and wind across.

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Toughest Strands puzzles

Here are some of the Strands topics I’ve found to be the toughest in recent weeks.

#1: Dated slang, Jan. 21. Maybe you didn’t even use this lingo when it was cool. Toughest word: PHAT.

#2: Thar she blows! Jan.15. I guess marine biologists might ace this one. Toughest word: BALEEN or RIGHT.

#3: Off the hook, Jan. 9. Similar to the Jan. 15 puzzle in that it helps to know a lot about sea creatures. Sorry, Charlie. Toughest word: BIGEYE or SKIPJACK.

Technologies

Judge Blocks Texas App Store Age-Check Law

A preliminary injunction found the Texas law, set to begin Jan. 1, is «more likely than not unconstitutional.»

A new Texas state law set to take effect on Jan. 1 would have required app stores to implement age verification processes. But the law has been put on hold, at least temporarily, by a federal court judge.

As reported by the Texas Tribune, Senate Bill 2420, also known as the Texas App Store Accountability Act, is the subject of a temporary injunction issued by US District Judge Robert Pitman.

Pitman said in his decision that the law as written is broad, vague and «more likely than not unconstitutional.» However, he also wrote the court «recognizes the importance of ongoing efforts to better safeguard children when they are on their devices.»

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The Texas law, signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott in May, requires app store operators — including Apple, Google, Nintendo, Steam and more — to build age verification processes for the storefronts and to only allow downloads to minors who obtain parental consent. The injunction is a ruling in an October lawsuit filed by the Computer & Communication Industry Association.

CCIA senior vice president Stephanie Joyce said in a statement, «This Order stops the Texas App Store Accountability Act from taking effect in order to preserve the First Amendment rights of app stores, app developers, parents, and younger internet users. It also protects parents’ inviolate right to use their own judgment in safeguarding their children online using the myriad tools our members provide.»

Other individuals and the advocacy group Students Engaged in Advancing Texas also filed suits over the law, the Texas Tribune reported.

App Store Accountability Act

The bill author, State Senator Angela Paxton, said the bill was meant to give parents «common sense tools to protect their kids and to survive court challenges by those who may have lesser priorities.»

The language of Texas Senate Bill 2420 does not only include mobile app stores from Apple or Google, but any «website, software application, or other electronic service that distributes software applications from the owner or developer of a software application to the user of a mobile device.»

By that definition, websites with links to browser games or mobile game consoles with download options would fall under the Texas law as written. The law also defines mobile devices as including phones and tablets, as well as any other handheld device capable of transmitting or storing information wirelessly.

The parental consent aspect of the law requires those under 18 to have an app store account affiliated with a parent or guardian to purchase or download applications.

Age verification elsewhere

In an effort to keep adult materials out of reach of minors and to protect children from potentially harmful content and interactions, tech companies have been compelled by law or through legal action to verify the age of users.

Roblox, which has a huge audience of minors, began rolling out stricter age verification after investigations and lawsuits hurt its reputation as a safe gaming space. Australia is perhaps the most large-scale example of a government restricting access to online content. In December, Australia began restricting social media access to those 16 and older. Reddit recently challenged that law.

In the US, age verification laws have primarily targeted adult sites. Texas already has a law on the books that requires adult sites to age-block their content. The Supreme Court upheld that law in a June ruling. The UK has also enacted age restriction rules for adult sites as have other US states.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Thursday, Dec. 25

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Dec. 25.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Of course, there’s a very Christmassy clue involved. And once you solve the entire puzzle, look at the letters used in all the answers and see what they have in common. (5-Across will tell you!) Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.