People Inc. CEO accuses Google of abusing market power by using the same web crawler for search and AI

People Inc. CEO Neil Vogel accused Google of abusing its market power by using the same web crawling system for both its search services and its AI-related offerings. Vogel’s comments, reported from Cannes, France on June 23, frame web crawling, the process by which automated software discovers and indexes pages across the internet, as a mechanism that can concentrate advantage in the hands of the dominant platform provider.

The criticism centers on the idea that a single crawler feeding both search and AI can deepen Google’s position over time. In practice, search relies on large-scale indexing of public web content so it can rank results, while AI systems often require broad training and enrichment from information available on the internet. By describing the crawler as shared between those two functions, Vogel argues that Google can turn one capability into multiple competitive strengths.

Vogel’s allegation was reported by Yahoo Finance via an Axios feed. The report describes the claim at a high level, without laying out a detailed legal theory, specific evidence documents, or a description of what People Inc. says Google refused to provide to competitors or how any harm is measured.

People Inc. is a relatively less prominent player compared with Google’s sprawling product stack, so the public record on what Vogel means by “abusing market power” will likely determine whether the dispute stays rhetorical or becomes actionable. For now, the publicly described accusation appears focused on control of the underlying data collection process rather than on a discrete product change, such as an update to search ranking or a modification to how AI results are generated.

The broader context is that regulators around the world have increasingly questioned whether large platforms can leverage dominance in core distribution into adjacent markets, especially where data access and infrastructure are concerned. Web crawling sits at the intersection of those concerns because it affects both visibility through search and the quality or coverage of AI systems that depend on large internet-derived datasets.

Google, for its part, operates an ongoing public communications strategy around its AI and product development, typically through official channels such as its company blog. However, no response from Google is described in the reported item, and no direct denial, explanation, or technical detail was provided in the information available for this story.

A key uncertainty is the evidentiary basis behind Vogel’s claim. The report characterizes the accusation, but it does not provide specifics such as how the crawler is shared (for example, whether it is the same infrastructure, same identifiers, same data retention practices, or whether outputs are recombined), what People Inc. says it is missing competitively, or what remedy it seeks.

What to watch next is whether People Inc. moves from allegation to filing, including a formal complaint or a request for regulatory or judicial intervention, and whether Google’s subsequent statements address the crawler question in technical terms or through policy. Investors and market participants will likely look for clarity on whether this becomes a data access dispute, a search distribution dispute, or a broader competition and antitrust case involving multiple products.