Federal Judge Dismisses Antitrust Lawsuits Against Google Over AI Overviews
Judge Amit Mehta dismissed antitrust suits from Chegg and Penske Media, ruling publishers’ expectation of search traffic—not an agreement—didn’t show Google unlawfully diverted users through AI Overviews. The Oct. 1 ruling said lawmakers, not antitrust law, should address the impact.
A federal judge dismissed two antitrust lawsuits against Google on Wednesday, October 1st, 2026, ruling against claims that the company’s AI-powered search features unlawfully diverted traffic from publishers’ websites.
US District Judge Amit Mehta sided with Google, finding that the claims brought by education technology company Chegg and Penske Media Corporation — the parent company of Rolling Stone — did not hold up under antitrust law.
In their lawsuits, filed last year, Chegg and PMC alleged that Google abused its monopoly power by pressuring publishers to provide content for its AI Overviews feature for free, or face removal from search results. Both companies argued that Google’s practices funneled traffic away from their sites and hurt their revenue.
Judge Mehta rejected those arguments. “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.”
Mehta acknowledged the broader difficulty publishers face, writing that the court is not “unsympathetic to the situation publishers now find themselves in.” However, he argued that antitrust law is not the appropriate mechanism to address the economic impact of “new innovation” — and that such decisions belong to a legislative body.
The ruling is notable given that Mehta was also the judge behind a landmark antitrust ruling against Google in 2024. The dismissal may suggest that legal challenges to Google’s AI search practices face a high bar under existing antitrust frameworks, though it remains unclear whether the plaintiffs will appeal or pursue other avenues.