Judge Dismisses Chegg, Penske Antitrust Suits Over AI Overviews

A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed two antitrust lawsuits accusing Google of using its AI Overviews search feature to siphon traffic from publishers, ruling that the plaintiffs failed to show any enforceable agreement was broken, according to The Verge, which cited an earlier Reuters report. The cases were brought last year by online education company Chegg and Penske Media Corporation, which owns Rolling Stone.

What did Chegg and Penske Media allege?

Both companies filed suit in 2025, arguing Google abused its dominance in search by pressuring publishers to supply content for AI Overviews at no cost or risk losing visibility in search results, The Verge reported. The plaintiffs said the arrangement cut into their own traffic and revenue once Google began surfacing AI-generated summaries instead of linking users directly to their sites.

Why did US District Judge Amit Mehta dismiss the claims?

Judge Mehta, who presided over the Justice Department's landmark 2024 antitrust ruling against Google in a separate search-monopoly case, found the publishers' legal theory did not hold up, per the Verge report. "Plaintiffs have pleaded only that they have an 'expectation' that Google will send them search traffic if they make their content available for free," Mehta wrote, according to the outlet. "But an expectation is not an agreement. It is simply how a general search engine works."

The ruling draws a distinction between a business expectation and a binding contractual term — the latter being what antitrust law generally requires to support a coercion claim.

What is Google's AI Overviews feature, in plain terms?

AI Overviews is a Google Search feature that generates an AI-written summary at the top of results pages, often pulling from publisher content without requiring a click-through to the original site. Publishers including Chegg and Penske argued that reduced clicks translate directly into lost advertising and subscription revenue, a dynamic now at the center of multiple ongoing disputes over AI's effect on the web's traffic economy.

What comes next for publishers fighting AI search traffic loss?

What to watch

• Whether Chegg or Penske Media appeal Mehta's dismissal or refile amended complaints with a narrower legal theory.
• Other publisher lawsuits against Google or rival AI search products that may test similar "coercion" arguments under different facts.
• Any policy response from Google, which has separately tested compensating some publishers for AI search results, per prior Verge reporting referenced in the story.
• Broader industry moves, such as Meta's new AI-focused subscription plans, as AI firms experiment with monetization models that touch the same publisher-traffic tensions.

Quick glossary

Antitrust law: Legal rules barring companies from abusing monopoly power to unfairly block or disadvantage competitors.

AI Overviews: Google's AI-generated summary box shown above standard search results.

Dismissal (legal): A court ruling that ends a case before trial because the claims, even if true, don't meet the legal standard required.

The decision does not resolve the broader question of how AI-generated search summaries affect publisher revenue — only whether Chegg's and Penske's specific legal theory satisfied antitrust pleading standards in Mehta's court.