People Inc. chief executive Neil Vogel accused Google of abusing its market power by using a single web crawler for both its search index and its artificial intelligence products, leaving publishers with no meaningful way to opt out of AI training without sacrificing search traffic. The remarks, made in Cannes, France, mark one of the most direct public confrontations yet between a major publisher and the search giant. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Bundled Crawler Problem
The core of Vogel's complaint is structural. Because Google runs one crawler that serves both search and AI, publishers who want to block their content from being used in AI products must accept the collateral cost of disappearing from Google search — a channel that remains essential for advertising and affiliate revenue. Vogel described that design as "an incredible abuse of market power." The practical effect is a coerced choice: surrender content to AI or surrender search visibility.
People Inc., which operates under the name formerly known as Dotdash Meredith, was among the publishers that moved to address AI scraping on a different front. The company partnered with Cloudflare when the infrastructure provider shifted to a permission-based model that blocks AI crawlers by default. Vogel said that move revealed how badly AI companies need publisher content. Once blocking went into effect, he said, "everybody calls" — a detail that illustrates the leverage publishers hold even when they feel structurally constrained by Google's bundled approach.
Two Kinds of AI Licensing Deals
People Inc. has negotiated AI content licensing agreements with Meta, OpenAI, and Microsoft, and Vogel drew a clear distinction between their structures. The deals with Meta and OpenAI are what he called "all-you-can-eat" arrangements: a flat payment that allows those companies to use People's content without restriction on volume. The Microsoft agreement operates differently — an "a la carte, pay as you go" model that charges based on actual usage.
Vogel argued that scarcity underpins the value of both deal types. People Inc. produces content at scale, and that content happens to align closely with what users search for — making it a critical input for AI models that depend on high-quality, query-relevant text.
What Comes Next
On the trajectory of the Google relationship, Vogel was direct: the company is "probably heading towards more confrontation than productivity" with Google, even as it would prefer a constructive arrangement. He expressed more optimism about AI licensing broadly, predicting that deals with AI companies will likely be renewed. His reasoning rests on what he sees as AI's three irreducible needs — a model, power, and inputs — and his view that publishers like People Inc. sit at the center of that third requirement.
The tension Vogel is articulating — between Google's structural grip on search distribution and publishers' growing recognition of their content's value to AI — is a fault line that has been widening across the industry. His comments in Cannes suggest it is now moving toward open dispute.