For most of the last two decades, the relationship between publishers and Google Search resembled nothing so much as a very long marriage in which one partner controlled the checking account. The publishers optimized, genuflected, and occasionally hired consultants who spoke of "SEO" in hushed tones. Google sent traffic. Everyone understood the arrangement.

Now, remarkably, some publishers are consulting divorce lawyers.

Last week, Cloudflare, the content delivery network that hosts roughly one-fifth of the world's websites, announced that beginning Sept. 15, new customers will have their default settings configured to block crawlers that scrape for both search indexing and artificial intelligence training. The primary target of this change, though unnamed, is Google, which uses a single crawler for both purposes — a bundling that forces publishers into an unpleasant choice.

"We've been clear about what we want," said Stephanie Cohen, Cloudflare's chief strategy officer. "We want a technical solution that allows you to be discoverable without having to give your content away for free."

(One might note that "giving content away for free" has been the unstated business model of the internet for some time now.)

Google has introduced a tool called Google Extended that nominally allows publishers to opt out of AI training while remaining in Search results, but publishers remain skeptical, according to executives at two media companies. A Google spokesman said the company is "committed to designing AI experiences that highlight the web, drive valuable traffic to publishers, and provide the insights they need to succeed."

USA Today Inc., which publishes a nationwide network of news sites, is prepared to remove itself from Google Search within six to twelve months, according to its chief executive, Mike Reed. The company has struck licensing agreements with Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon for AI training. Google, unlike its peers, has not signed any such deals with publishers.

"I wouldn't call it a big decision because we're blocking other crawlers," Mr. Reed said. "For those with licensing agreements, they get our content. For those without, we block them."

The calculus, according to industry executives, is straightforward if melancholy: once search traffic falls below a certain threshold, the value of appearing in Google becomes less than the value of withholding content as a negotiating tactic.

It is, perhaps, the first time in memory that publishers have considered walking away from the platform rather than toward it. Whether Google comes to the table remains to be seen. The checking account, for now, remains in the same hands.

Original story published in adweek.com: "Publishers Are Preparing to Opt Out of Google Search"