A US federal judge has dismissed a pair of antitrust lawsuits targeting Google’s AI Overviews, handing the technology company a significant legal victory in a dispute over how its artificial intelligence search features affect web traffic. The claims were brought by education platform Chegg and Penske Media Corporation, the parent company of Rolling Stone.
US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled in Google’s favour on Wednesday, finding that the claims brought by the two publishers did not hold up under antitrust law. Mehta previously issued a landmark antitrust ruling against Google in 2024.
What the publishers alleged
In lawsuits filed last year, Chegg and Penske Media Corporation accused Google of abusing its monopoly power by pressuring publishers into supplying content for AI Overviews for free, or risk being removed from search results altogether. The publishers argued that these practices diverted traffic away from their websites and damaged their revenue.
Judge Mehta rejected that reasoning. “Plaintiffs have pleaded only that they have an ‘expectation’ that Google will send them search traffic if they make their content available for free,” he wrote. “But an expectation is not an agreement. It is simply how a general search engine works.”
Court acknowledges publisher concerns
While ruling against the publishers, Mehta noted that the court was not “unsympathetic to the situation publishers now find themselves in.” He added, however, that antitrust rules cannot substitute for a legislative body’s decision on how to address the economic impact of “new innovation.”
The ruling arrives as publishers continue to feel the effects of Google’s AI-driven search overhaul, with traffic to news outlets and smaller websites falling sharply. This week it was reported that Google is paying around 100 publishers for their contributions to AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Gemini as part of a pilot programme.
The decision closes one legal avenue for publishers seeking to challenge the way AI-powered search surfaces information, leaving future recourse potentially dependent on legislative action rather than the courts.
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Image: theverge.com
