People Inc. CEO Neil Vogel calls Google a 'bad actor' over AI crawling practices

Neil Vogel, the CEO of People Inc., has publicly criticized Google for allegedly misappropriating publisher content to fuel its AI initiatives without offering fair compensation. During his address at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, Vogel described Google's strategy of using a single crawler for both indexing websites for search purposes and extracting data for AI as indicative of the company's role as an 'intentional bad actor.' Vogel pointed out that this dual usage means that the same technology responsible for driving traffic to publishers is also being used to 'steal' their content for AI applications. He noted a significant decline in Google's traffic contribution to his company, stating that three years ago, Google Search accounted for approximately 65% of their traffic, whereas that figure has now dropped to the high 20s. In past years, Google's share was as high as 90%. Despite these challenges, Vogel expressed optimism about People Inc.'s growth, stating, 'We’ve grown our audience. We’ve grown our revenue.' However, he emphasized the unfairness of Google using their content to compete against them. To navigate the evolving landscape of AI, Vogel indicated that publishers require more leverage. In response, People Inc. has teamed up with Cloudflare to block AI crawlers that do not compensate for the content they utilize, prompting negotiations with AI companies. He highlighted that they have already reached an agreement with OpenAI, which he referred to as a 'good actor.' While not disclosing specific names, Vogel mentioned that discussions have begun with several prominent Large Language Model providers following the implementation of their crawler blocks, although no formal agreements have been established yet. He acknowledged that the primary obstacle remains Google's crawler, which cannot be blocked without losing critical search traffic. 'They know this, and they’re not splitting their crawler. So they are an intentional bad actor here,' Vogel asserted. Supporting Vogel's stance, Janice Min, CEO of Ankler Media, characterized major tech companies like Google and Meta as 'content kleptomaniacs' and stated that her company has chosen to block AI crawlers entirely. Cloudflare's CEO, Matthew Prince, who was also present on the panel, advised publishers not to depend solely on copyright laws to combat AI scraping. He cautioned that derivative works may often qualify under fair use, suggesting that Google will ultimately need to compensate content creators for AI training. Prince further remarked, 'Everything that’s wrong with the world today is, at some level, Google’s fault,' criticizing how Google has conditioned publishers to prioritize traffic over content quality.