It appears that Google is not satisfied with its control over internet searches and its recent antitrust case loss doesn’t seem to have dampened its desire for more power. Despite the Department of Justice suggesting that Google’s search businesses may need to be broken up, the company is now testing new ways to divert even more traffic and ad revenue away from small website owners.
One of the new features Google is experimenting with is an AI overview at the top of search results. This feature provides a summary of the content on other websites, eliminating the need to actually visit those websites. But now, Google seems to be taking it a step further with a new feature called “Quick View” that directly appropriates content from chefs and online cookbooks. This feature allows users to view the ingredient list and directions for a recipe from the publisher’s website without actually clicking through to the website. It essentially keeps the user on Google’s website by providing all the information they need in a neat little window.
This move by Google is concerning for website owners and publishers because it takes away their traffic and potential ad revenue. Instead of encouraging users to visit the publishers’ websites, Google is now serving the information directly on its own platform. This could have a significant impact on smaller publishers who rely on the traffic driven to their websites through search engine results.
Google asserts that it is constantly experimenting with ways to connect users with high-quality and helpful information. The company claims to have partnerships with a limited number of creators for this new recipe experience on search. The exact scale of this experiment is not clear, but it is concerning that Google is exploring new ways to retain users on its own domain while potentially harming smaller publishers.
The timing of Google’s endeavor is interesting, given the current scrutiny it faces from the Department of Justice and a group of Democratic senators. The Department of Justice is considering whether websites crawled for Google search should be able to opt out of appearing in any Google-owned AI products or features. This likely includes features like AI Overview and Quick View that present content from other websites in a summarized or repackaged manner. The senators are particularly concerned about how Google misappropriates content from website owners and how this benefits the tech giant at the expense of smaller publishers.
For recipe websites specifically, the senators highlight that generative AI features, like Quick View, copy information from their websites without authorization and present it as AI-generated recipes directly to users. This puts recipe websites in direct competition with Google’s own presentation of the content. If publishers want to prevent their content from being stolen by Google, their only option is to opt out of being indexed by the search engine, which would consequently result in a significant drop in referral traffic.
While it has become common to complain about the long stories and musings that precede the instructions on many recipe websites, Google’s solution of diverting traffic away from these websites could have serious consequences. If publishers are no longer able to drive traffic, they may have to shut down, leaving users solely reliant on Google and its potentially flawed instructions. This could have implications not only for recipe websites but for other types of content as well.
In conclusion, Google’s new “Quick View” feature raises concerns about the company’s increasing control over search results and its impact on smaller website owners. The Department of Justice and Democratic senators are both scrutinizing Google’s practices, particularly its misappropriation of content and its potential to harm smaller publishers. The future of the internet ecosystem and the balance of power between tech giants like Google and independent publishers remains uncertain, but it is crucial to ensure a fair and competitive landscape that benefits all stakeholders involved.
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