A lawsuit claims Google took people’s data without their knowledge or consent to train its AI products, including chatbot Bard.
A lawsuit claims Google took people’s data without their knowledge or consent to train its AI products, including chatbot Bard.
I won’t go very deep into this and will make a very simple case to understand the issue. Let’s say I decide to buy testing equipment for a certain type of devices. I run these tests and then I document my findings on a personal website. I then get remunerated for my original work either by using affiliation or ads. Or both since this is a very common way to monetize a website. Then comes Google which takes the content and shows it before the user has the chance to click and go to the website. Additionally, Bard doesn’t even reference the original work, it claims it’s its own. The consequence is that I will stop testing those devices and the Internet will lose valuable original content. And let’s not forget that Google shamelessly pushed its services above the organic websites, but that’s another whole big can of worms.
What’s currently stopping a certain user by the name science_r0x_99 from going to your site and copying your data and posting it on his YouTube channel without giving credit? What’s stopping the journalist Johnny Always Busy from copying that data and putting them in an article on the Daily Whatever with a tacky headline and again no credit?
I think you’ve just described the nature of copyright law, which is effective in some ways and ineffective in others.
That’s when the search engine usually came in and helped the original content be pushed above copycats. It’s actually very common what you said, but rarely were the content creators bothered by those that plagiarize the content. What Google seems to want to do is to stop behaving like a search engine altogether and start acting like the content thieves. In an ideal world, a new search engine/s would just push Google out and take its place. But when you’re a monopoly, that’s not really an option now is it?