Google rebrands NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook, raising scraping concerns

Image credit: Search Engine Journal

Google rebranded its NotebookLM service to Gemini Notebook on Tuesday, prompting global website owners to update security measures against unauthorized content scraping by artificial intelligence.

The rebranding, which Google said includes no functional changes to the service, highlights a continuing challenge for online publishers as Gemini Notebook‘s ‘Discover Sources‘ feature can summarize online articles without permission or generating referral traffic.

This feature, along with Gemini Notebook’s ability to create audio and video overviews from web content, repurposes original material into formats like podcasts or video explainers, potentially competing directly with the original sources, according to industry observers.

Unlike traditional web crawlers, Gemini Notebook’s scrapers operate as user-triggered fetchers and do not adhere to robots.txt exclusion protocols, making them difficult to block through standard webmaster tools.

Website administrators must now implement updates to their firewalls or .htaccess files to prevent content access by the new user agent, as the previously recognized ‘Google-NotebookLM’ user agent will cease functioning in August 2026, Google announced.

The company also confirmed that Project Mariner, a related initiative, was retired in May 2026, and its mention has been removed from Google’s documentation concerning user-triggered fetchers.

The shift necessitates proactive adjustments from site owners to maintain control over their intellectual property and ensure proper attribution and traffic generation from their online content.

Source: Search Engine Journal