Judge dismisses antitrust lawsuits over Google’s AI Overviews

A federal judge has dismissed antitrust lawsuits brought by Chegg and Penske Media Corporation (PMC), the parent company of Rolling Stone. The publishers accused Google of using its AI-powered search features to divert web traffic from their sites and hurt their revenue.

In lawsuits filed last year, Chegg and PMC alleged that Google abused its monopoly power by requiring publishers to provide content for AI Overviews for free or risk disappearing from search results. US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that the claims do not stand up under antitrust law.

Mehta wrote that the publishers had pleaded only an “expectation” that Google would send them search traffic if they made their content available for free, adding that “an expectation is not an agreement.” He said that was simply how a general search engine works.

Mehta said he was not unsympathetic to publishers’ situation, but wrote that antitrust rules could not substitute for legislative action addressing the economic impact of new innovation. He made a landmark antitrust ruling against Google in 2024.

The ruling comes as news publishers and small websites continue to see steep traffic declines amid Google’s AI-powered search changes. The Information reported this week that Google is paying around 100 publishers in a pilot program for contributions to AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Gemini. The Verge is part of Penske Media.