The verdict has felt anti-climactic for media and ad execs who had hoped for sweeping change, especially given the court had already ruled Google's search dominance a monopoly last August. Publishing execs hoped the remedies would separate Google's search engine crawler from its AI experiments - such as AI Overviews and AI Mode - or at least force them to provide more data on how those products are impacting publisher clickthroughs from search. That would've given publishers more control over where their content is showing up, and what it's used for.
Publishers are picking up new vibes from Meta, which they believe signal that the platform may be changing its stance on AI licensing. So far, it's more rhetoric than reality. Nevertheless, if it were to come to fruition, it could reset the dynamic between Meta and publishers, many of whom still feel burned by years of declining referral traffic from the platform.
Last year, Facebook moved away from a revenue-share payout model that paid publishers based on the performance of ads in content, transitioning to a model that rewards creators based on content performance itself. This shift has effectively changed how publishers engage with the platform, focusing more on the content they create for Facebook.
