A U.S. federal judge dismissed antitrust lawsuits against Alphabet's Google. Education technology company Chegg and publisher Penske Media filed these lawsuits. The lawsuits alleged Google unlawfully used its search dominance. Google repurposed their content for its AI-generated summaries, known as AI Overviews. This diverted traffic and revenue from their websites.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled the publishers' claims failed. They could not prove a formal agreement existed. This agreement would have obligated Google to provide web traffic in exchange for content indexing. The judge stated that publishers' "expectation" of traffic is not a legally binding agreement. It simply reflects how search engines operate. The dismissal addresses a critical legal challenge to Google's integration of AI into its core search product.