AI theft leads WalletHub to remove 40k pages from Google

In response to AI companies using publishers’ content without compensation, WalletHub announced today that it has removed 40,000 pages of financial content from the reach of Google and other AI search engines. This content will now be exclusively available to logged-in WalletHub users.

AI theft leads WalletHub to remove 40k pages from Google index plus new AI search results survey

This move is the direct result of anticompetitive practices by Google and other AI companies, which are pushing publishers across the world to a breaking point. Many publishers are going out of business in the face of big tech companies with a newfound thirst for thievery, and others are doubling down on efforts to increase their subscriber base.

WalletHub also released a new survey that shows consumers are not happy with the shady practices associated with AI companies:

• Fair Pay for Creators: 62% of people think it should be illegal for AI companies to use people’s work without compensating them.
• Holding AI Companies Responsible: 2 in 3 Americans think AI companies should be sued for giving inaccurate answers.
• Demand for Clear Disclosures: Nearly 9 in 10 Americans think all AI content should have a prominent disclosure.
• Trust Real Expertise: Nearly 4 in 5 Americans say they trust human experts more than AI.
• Concern Over AI Manipulation: 83% of people are concerned they will get manipulated if search results get replaced by answers from an AI.
• Skeptical of AI Advice: Nearly 3 in 5 people say they’re not comfortable taking financial or medical advice from AI.
   

"The decision to prevent Google and other AI bots from accessing tens of thousands of WalletHub pages is not one we took lightly. We’ve spent the past couple of years exhausting every available alternative, but it’s impossible to invest in content when theft is allowed.

Imagine you’re a restaurant owner and you get approached by the mafia with two options. Either they shut down the road your restaurant is on and no customers can reach you, or they keep the road clear but open a restaurant next door to yours and make you serve their customers for free while they charge lower prices than you. Sure, some customers will get to you in the second scenario, but it won’t be enough to overcome the losses. Google behaves exactly like that, even after being declared a monopoly, which shows you how much regard they have for the U.S. justice system.

Google went from organizing the world’s information to stealing it, taking a sledgehammer to the implied contract the open web has relied on for so long. The deal has always been that publishers give search engines access to their content in return for visibility within the search results. Now, Google and other AI-powered companies are taking the content and giving almost nothing back in return. A lot of AI content is just copyright infringement hiding behind the veil of technological progress.

I’ve had enough, personally, so I’m taking my proverbial ball home. I hope other publishers will join me in taking their content in-house and starving Google and the other AI bots of oxygen," said Odysseas Papadimitriou, WalletHub CEO.