Indian media houses block OpenAI’s web crawler to protect content

In a bid to protect their valuable content, leading media houses in India have initiated measures to block OpenAI’s web scanning tool to protect their news websites from content piracy.

Over the past three weeks, four prominent media groups – the Times Group, HT Media, The Hindu Group, and the Dainik Bhaskar Group have blocked OpenAI’s web crawler, known as ‘GPTBot’ on their entire online news offerings. Top officials from these groups have confirmed this development.

Some other news publishers are contemplating similar action in the coming days.

Revenue Loss Concerns
Beyond content protection, ChatGPT and similar AI tools from other companies are being held responsible for a decline in referral traffic to news websites through Google Search.

Digital revenue for news publishers has faced a decline in recent months due to various factors, including reduced news consumption and declining mobile phone sales. Generative AI is exacerbating this revenue challenge, as users are increasingly avoiding clicking on news links. Rather, they turn to AI chatbots for their queries, which has further eroded Digital publishers’ revenues.

Websites generate revenue when users visit their sites and click on the ads displayed on their webpages. A publisher lamented, “About 90 percent of news consumers no longer click on news links. With AI integration in Google Search, users will simply read the gist provided by Google or headlines of news. Our websites could lose all referral traffic, leaving us with no Digital revenue. How can we continue to invest in journalism and news production under such circumstances?”

The Growing Giants
OpenAI, which rolled out ChatGPT in November 2022, has swiftly grown into a behemoth. According to international media reports, OpenAI is currently valued at $30 billion, despite not disclosing revenue figures.

News publishers worldwide fear that OpenAI may reap substantial revenues in the future by leveraging ChatGPT with their content, while neglecting to share any of these earnings with news publishers who invest heavily in content production. Impactonnet