Shailesh Prakash, Vice President and General Manager of Google News, has resigned following growing tensions with news organizations, which accused Google of siphoning off crucial advertising revenue. The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported his departure, though the official reason remains unclear.

Why the Tensions?
Google’s business practices regarding news have faced increased scrutiny, particularly as many news outlets rely on the search engine for traffic. A key point of contention was the introduction of AI Overviews last May, which displayed AI-generated summaries at the top of search results, pushing down links to publishers’ sites. The News Media Alliance, representing over 2,200 publishers, warned that this would severely impact their traffic and urged federal intervention.

Additionally, Google has been accused of using publishers’ copyrighted content to train its AI models without proper attribution. There were also reports, including one from the New York Post, alleging that Google leveraged its influence with the U.S. Trade Representative to oppose foreign regulations, such as Canada’s Online News Act, which mandates payment for displaying news content.

About Shailesh Prakash
Prakash, who joined Google in November 2022, previously served as Chief Product and Technology Officer at The Washington Post for over a decade, where he played a pivotal role in the paper’s digital transformation. Before his tenure at the Post, he worked at Sears and Microsoft.