The core claim: Google is abusing its search monopoly to force pubs to hand over content - not just for traditional search indexing but to feed its AI. Google then repurposes it to substitute them with its own services breaking the fundamental bargain of the open web. /2

Penske says this is not a fair exchange. If it weren't for Google's adjudicated monopoly power (recall Judge Mehta said they get 19x as many queries as next biggest), Google would be paying pubs for these rights or if it didn't then they would opt-out of providing them. /3

Plaintiffs explain what makes search traffic unique as a market leveraging DC opinion to explain intentionality. General Search Engine is a gateway to the rest of the open web and the DC District Court ruled that Google has illegally maintained a monopoly in that market. /4

Yes, we already know it's an incredibly large, profitable business in terms of revenues but underneath it is what the Court described as "scale" which includes the data, the queries, the clicks. Incredibly valuable to training search results and importantly AI. /5

And now that the Court has ruled Google has abused its monopoly power, the past conduct becomes part of the story. Google forced featured snippets on to publishers even as EU copyright rules made it clear they needed permission from the publisher. That is called stage 1. /6

On to stage 2. PMC says Google’s behavior is unlawful reciprocal dealing - forcing a tie between services to reinforce its monopoly. In lay terms Google is saying: “Let us use your content for AI or we’ll demote you in Search.” /7

This came up in DC search remedies as Dept of Justice included a remedy requiring Google allow the publisher more choice. But Judge Mehta decided it wasn't appropriate based on the complaint before him. That said, he rightly kicked open the door with his opinions. /8

And now this complaint was clearly being finalized up until the last week. It includes not only reporting by Digiday here on DCN's research as to the impact of Google AI Overviews and AI Mode on publishers of all types... /9

“The open web is already in rapid decline.” - Google, in court filings we flagged last weekend. PMC points to this as an admission that AI Overviews - by siphoning referral traffic - are accelerating the collapse of the open, ad-supported web. ergo, why it was so sensitive. /10

PMC outlines three forms of coerced content usage: (1) Republishing in snippets (2) Training LLMs (3) Repurposing for RAG All tied to access to search traffic - which Google monopolizes. This bundling strategy, PMC argues, is illegal under antitrust law. /11

Google’s search results design leaves publishers with no good choices: (a) Opt out of AI use? You vanish from Search. (b) Stay in? You hand over content for free. The result: a “race to the bottom” where everyone’s coerced into supplying AI content - and only Google benefits. /12

PMC calls its content a “golden corpus” for AI - meticulously researched and edited, making it ideal to train generative AI outputs. But that value, PMC says, comes from massive investment - tens of millions/year in real journalism. Google pays $0 for it through the tie. /13

And here is the tie (reciprocal dealing)... PMC alleges Google violates the Sherman Act by tying search referral traffic to PMC's free supply of content - for AI training, republishing, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). In other words, no content = no traffic. /14

Bottom-line imho, it’s a very smart complaint bringing together DC circuit findings of fact tied now to G AI services where this is real-time harm underway. Susan Godfrey is the law firm! and notably they also have NYT v OpenAI. cc @dcnorg.bsky.social /15 storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...