Google is a ‘bad actor' says People CEO, accusing the company of stealing content

Core Viewpoint - The CEO of People, Inc. has accused Google of unfair practices by using the same crawler for both its search engine and AI products, which he claims leads to content theft [1][2][3] Group 1: Company Performance and Traffic - Three years ago, Google Search accounted for approximately 65% of People, Inc.'s traffic, which has since dropped to the "high 20s" percentage [4] - At one point, Google's traffic represented as much as 90% of People, Inc.'s traffic from the open web [4] - Despite the decline in traffic from Google, People, Inc. has managed to grow its audience and revenue [4] Group 2: AI Crawlers and Content Deals - The CEO believes that publishers need more leverage in the AI era and is advocating for blocking AI crawlers to negotiate better content deals [4] - People, Inc. has implemented Cloudflare's solution to block AI crawlers that do not pay, which has led to discussions with large LLM providers about potential content deals [4][9] - No deals have been finalized yet, but the company is reportedly "much further along" in negotiations since adopting the crawler-blocking solution [4] Group 3: Industry Perspectives on Big Tech - Other industry leaders, like the CEO of Ankler Media, have echoed similar sentiments, labeling big tech companies as "content kleptomaniacs" and expressing reluctance to partner with AI companies [8] - Cloudflare's CEO suggested that changes in AI company behavior may occur due to new regulations, and he questioned the effectiveness of using copyright law against AI companies [9][10] - There is speculation that Google may eventually pay content creators for the use of their content in AI models within the next year [11]