May 28, 2024

The Honorable Jonathan Kanter
Assistant Attorney General
Antitrust Division
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530
The Honorable Lina KhanChair
Federal Trade Commission
600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20580
Dear Assistant Attorney General Kanter and Chair Khan:
I write to express News/Media Alliance’s (“N/MA”) concerns regarding Google’s misappropriation ofdigital publishers’ content to power its generative artificial intelligence (“GAI”) products to enhance its
monopoly power. Google is already known as the world’s dominant search engine, and the Departmentof Justice (“DOJ”) showed at trial how Google illegally monopolized that market. Now, Google is abusing
its power in search to use publishers’ content - without payment or permission - to power Google AI
Overviews and its other GAI products to exclude competition. It is critical that the DOJ and Federal TradeCommission (“FTC”) act now to stop Google’s anticompetitive conduct before the effects becomeirreversible.
Google has a history of flagrantly misappropriating publishers’ content on its search results pages, asillustrated by the FTC’s 2012 investigation into Google’s scraping practices 1. It has steadily introduced
more and more detailed “snippets” of publishers’ content, until it reached the point ofmisappropriation. Not only has this misappropriation protected Google’s monopoly in search, it has also
starved publishers of traffic by eliminating consumers’ incentive to click-through to view publishers’
content. Google has transformed itself into a walled garden monopolizing users’ attention to thedetriment of content providers who compete with Google for audiences and advertisers.
Google has now announced plans to deploy its GAI products nationwide. The prominent placement of AI
Overviews at the top of Google’s search results page will reduce click through to publishers’ websites
even further and thus further strengthen Google’s monopoly. Google’s AI Overviews will significantly
reduce publishers’ ability to monetize their content through advertising, subscriptions, and affiliate links,
and instead drive that monetization directly to Google. Reports estimate that Google’s GAI products will

1 See e.g., Jack Nicas, Google Rival Yelp Claims Search Giant Broke Promise Made to Regulators, THE WALL STREETJOURNAL (Sept. 11, 2017), https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-rival-yelp-claims-search-giant-broke-promisemade-to-regulators-1505167498.

reduce the traffic of sites Google competes with for advertisers and audiences by 64 percent. 2 One
study estimates that Google’s integration of AI Overviews and search will result in 90 percent of search
queries never leaving Google’s search result page. 3 As a result, AI Overviews will further entrench
Google’s monopoly power while starving digital publishers of monetization opportunities to fund highquality, original content. Google’s conduct will have profound anticompetitive effects, by reducing oreliminating entirely the incentive of publishers to develop, create and publish new content, only to see
Google use its monopoly power to misappropriate that content and pass it off as its own, with the effectof further enhancing Google’s entrenched monopoly power. Potential entrants who see that Google cansimply misappropriate their differentiated content to enhance Google’s product while demoting theirown will lack either the ability or the incentive to invest in creating competition to Google.
In a competitive market, publishers can compete with Google for traffic and advertisers on the strengthof their respective content. But Google has the requisite power to prevent this healthy competition byusing its search monopoly to gain access to publishers’ content that allows it to keep traffic on Google
and off publishers’ sites. The only way for publishers to opt out of AI Overviews (i.e., Google’s GAI) andstop Google’s monopolistic practice is to effectively opt out of search distribution, which is not a viableoption for publishers. Accordingly, no practical solutions exist for publishers seeking to protect their
original content from Google’s misappropriation. Google’s search monopoly thus allows it to force
publishers to give up their content for use in Google’s GAI products if publishers do not wish that
content to become effectively invisible to large swaths of readers—precisely the sort of anticompetitive
conduct that Google committed to ending following the FTC’s 2012 scraping investigation. 4
Recent actions suggest that Google continues to exploit its access to publisher content while
implementing actions that undermine publishers’ ability to monetize their content on their own
websites that compete with Google. One week before widely releasing AI Overviews, Google adjusted its
ranking algorithm to de-rank, and in some instances delist entirely, portions of publishers’ websites
providing coupons and other promotional material, which provide important revenue streams forpublishers. In an ostensible effort intended to reduce “spam” from its search results pages, Google
updated its spam policy to derank so-called third-party pages included on a first party site with little
oversight or involvement, where the purpose is to manipulate search rankings. 5 The updated policy
2 Gilad David Maayan, How Google SGE will impact your traffic – and 3 SGE recovery case studies, SEARCH ENGINELAND (Sept. 5, 2023), https://searchengineland.com/how-google-sge-will-impact-your-traffic-and-3-sge-recoverycase-studies-431430.
3 Omer Leibenzon, Study Reveals: SGE Threatens 90% of Google’s Top Searches, ANGORA MEDIA (Mar. 31, 2024),
https://www.angoramedia.com/blog/study-google-sge-impact-brands.
4 See Fed. Trade Comm’n, File No. 111-0163, Statement of the Fed. Trade Comm’n Regarding Google’s Search (Jan.
3, 2013) (“The Commission also investigated allegations that Google had unfairly ‘scraped,’ or misappropriated, thecontent of certain competing websites, passed this content off as its own, and then threatened to delist these rivals
entirely from Google’s search results when they protested the misappropriation of their content. The Commission
considered whether this conduct could have diminished the incentive of Google’s rivals to invest in bringing new andinnovative content and services to the Internet in the future or reduced Google’s own incentive to innovate in therelevant markets, and if so whether this conduct was actionable as an unfair method of competition within themeaning of Section 5 of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. § 45. Chairman Leibowitz, Commissioner Brill and Commissioner
Ramirez found the record evidence to support strong concerns about Google’s conduct in this regard, and Google
has committed to refrain from this conduct in the future.”).
5 Spam Policies for Google Web Search, GOOGLE SEARCH CENTRAL, https://developers.google.com/search/docs/
essentials/spam-policies (last accessed May 10, 2024); for announcement, see Site Reputation Abuse, GOOGLE

makes exceptions for “coupons that are listed with close involvement of the hosting site” and“[e]mbedding third-party ad units throughout a page or using affiliate links throughout a page,” whichshould have protected publishers offering promotional content. 6 But in practice, Google’s
implementation of the policy – by fiat, without notice or opportunity to cure – has not followed its own
exceptions and had the practical impact of eliminating access to publishers’ own pages carrying
promotional material. 7 These changes hurt publishers, readers, and retailers alike. And this change camewithout meaningful opportunity for redress: already Google has cursorily rejected one publisher’srequest for reinstatement, providing no real justification or context.
Adding insult to injury, AI Overviews almost immediately began showing promo codes in response tosome queries, even as it delisted rival publishers’ coupon sites offering identical types of promotions. 8
Delisting trusted publisher pages as part of a policy update is the most recent example of how AI
Overviews, instead of competing on the merits of its product, starves its publishers of valuable revenue
streams and reserves third-party monetization opportunities for itself.
Google’s misappropriation of publishers’ content and its undermining of publishers’ monetization
opportunities are not competition on the merits. They are yet another example of Google restricting
competition for its own benefit. Agency intervention is necessary to stop the existential threat Google
poses to original content creators. Accordingly, we ask the DOJ and FTC to use their authority underSection 2 of the Sherman Act, and Section 5 of the FTC Act to stop Google’s latest expansion of AI
Overviews, investigate its monopolistic misappropriation of publishers’ content, and take necessary
action to end Google’s abusive conduct. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Sincerely,Danielle Coffey
President & CEO
News/Media Alliance

SEARCH CENTRAL, https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies#site-reputation(last accessed May 28, 2024).
6 Spam Policies for Google Web Search, GOOGLE SEARCH CENTRAL, https://developers.google.com/search/docs/
essentials/spam-policies (last accessed May 28, 2024).
7
As detailed in the attached document detailing the effects of this policy change, pages affected included coupon
and promotional pages, and sports betting, lottery, and gaming content.
8See, e.g., Kristi Hines (@kristileilani), X (May 7, 2024, 1:42 PM), https://twitter.com/kristileilani/status/1787900932107419968.

News/Media Alliance Calls on Google to Abandon
Ill-Advised Changes to Site Reputation Abuse Policy
On May 5, 2024, Google implemented its new site reputation abuse policy that is already reaping
significant harmful effects on news, magazine, and digital publishers. This policy has amounted towholesale deranking or deindexing whole sections of publisher properties, effectively removing
publishers’ coupon and affiliate link pages, and sports, lottery, and gaming content from Google
Search results. Given Google’s stranglehold on Search, the new policy drains publishers of importantrevenue streams that fund investments in high-quality journalism, harms consumer and retailers
reliant upon trusted sources of promotions, and effectively restricts users trying to access news
content around sports betting, iGaming, lottery, and similar topics.
Buried in a routine update, in March 2024 Google announced a new policy that reads, in relevant part:
Site reputation abuse is when third-party pages are published with little or no first-party
oversight or involvement, where the purpose is to manipulate Search rankings by taking
advantage of the first-party site’s ranking signals. Such third-party pages include sponsored,
advertising, partner, or other third-party pages that are typically independent of a host site’s
main purpose or produced without close oversight or involvement of the host site, and provide
little to no value to users.
The policy, however, was adopted without any effective consultations with publishers and applied toderank or delist whole sections that are in fact closely edited and monitored by the publisher. The
decision to block access to local newspaper sites was not an accident; Google has acknowledged thatthe selection of the affected sections was manual and not algorithmic.
Google Must Redraft Its Disruptive Policy Changes in Consultation with Publishers
Despite the policy’s significant and disruptive effect on publishers of high-quality, curated content,
Google did not engage in any meaningful consultations with newspaper, magazine, and digital media
publishers prior to the adoption and implementation of the policy.
While the policy could be read as including exceptions that cover longstanding forms of content
published by legitimate publishers who are not aiming to manipulate search results in a malicious
manner, it has not been applied in that manner. The manual enforcement of the rules were broadstroked and unpredictable, capturing properties by trusted, established publishers who invest
considerable oversight and resources in curating the content they publish on their sites. The affectedsites include Los Angeles Times, with full time staff dedicated to selecting promotion codes, USA
Today, a trusted brand that exercises oversight over its couponing material and has been publishingthem since 1982, and several local journalism mastheads that had been diligently growing reader
interest, and monetization capabilities, from their local sporting, iGaming, and lottery promotional
content.
___________________________________________________________________
1 Spam Policies for Google Web Search, Google Search Central,
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies (last accessed May 20, 2024).
2 Barry Schwartz, Google Begins Enforcement of Site Reputation Abuse Policy with Portions of Sites Being
Delisted, Search Engine Land (May 6, 2024), https://searchengineland.com/google-begins-enforcement-ofsite-reputation-abuse-policy-with-portions-of-sites-being-delisted-440294

1

As a result, Google’s unilateral policy penalizes legitimate content and threatens the revenue streamsof publishers of trustworthy online content, in direct contravention of Google’s own stated aims.
Google must work with publishers to revise its policy and implementation strategy and allow
publishers to continue to serve the public and businesses in their communities.
The Public Relies on Publisher Coupons, Lottery, iGaming, and Sports Betting Content
N/MA’s members have been publishing coupons and sharing promotional material for much longer
than Google has existed. Newspapers and magazines have regularly included coupons in theirpublications for the past century. Such promotions form an important part of our community lives,
providing local businesses an efficient and trusted way to attract new and retain existing customers,
while helping families ease their financial burden – particularly during the cost of living crisis.
Meanwhile, with the proliferation of lotteries and legalized sports and iGaming betting, readers arebecoming increasingly interested in sources that report the results timely and accurately. Publishers
have responded to this demand by making this content available online as part of the digitaltransformation, in turn unlocking a vital revenue stream for local journalism providers especially.
Content like these have simply become part of the bargain between readers, publishers, and local
businesses. It is a mutually beneficial process – with no detrimental quality to the search experience orquality – that Google’s unilateral actions are threatening to eradicate.
Google’s Actions Harm Consumers and Worsens User Experience
Google is engaging in unfair, anticompetitive conduct that hurts the publishing industry andconsumer experience. While delisting or deindexing publishers’ coupon, sports betting, iGaming, andlottery-related properties pursuant to its new policy, Google is still providing the information on thesame subjects to consumers, either by providing direct answers in its own walled garden or linking toother sites that have not been delisted or deindexed. The removal of publisher properties from Searchis exacerbated by Google’s generative artificial intelligence (AI) products which are prominently placed
above search results and replace the need for users to visit publisher sites in the first place, regardlessof the particular topic or ranking status of the publisher website. Whether a publisher site is affectedby the spam policy changes or not, Google’s AI products threaten publishers’ ability to monetize theircontent, including through affiliate links, on sites ranging from coupons to product reviews, thatprovide an important revenue stream for many publishers. Google’s conduct therefore has allowed itto further drive third-party monetization towards itself, and away from publishers. Additionally, thepromotional information provided by Google is less reliable, including low-quality sites that provide
expired, spam, and fraudulent codes or promotional offers. In result, consumers can no longer accessthe information they need and want, and publishers are unable to provide a service they have spentyears building, all the while Google entrenches the market dominant position of its own services.
Spam Policy Change Is Yet Another Example of Google’s Market Abusive Business Practices
Google’s unilateral change, adopted without any consultations with the affected publishers, is yet
another example in a long line of anticompetitive and market abusive practices that harm not only
publishers but the creative sector and the online ecosystem as a whole.
Over the years, Google has flagrantly misappropriated publishers’ content in various ways – ranging
from Google News to Featured Snippets, Top Stories, and People Also Ask – that all effectively
republish high-quality content that publishers spend considerable time and resources to create.

2

www.newsmediaalliance.org

More recently, Google, have misappropriated publisher content to train AI models now integrated intoSearch, aiming to provide users with responses that effectively eliminate the need to visit the original
publisher content and website altogether. Such practices protect Google’s primary monopoly in search
while allowing Google to further encroach in the digital publishing market.
The end result is unsustainable and presents an existential threat to high-quality newspaper,magazine, and digital publishing in the United States. This latest iteration of an anti-spam policy is anoverreach that eradicates years of investment, brand and relationship building, and vital revenue
streams for publishers of all sizes. Its formulation and enforcement is an affront to publishers who haveno option but to comply with Google’s dictates while providing important services that theircommunities and readers rely on.

3

www.newsmediaalliance.org