Judge dismisses Chegg and Penske antitrust lawsuits targeting Google AI search

A federal judge has thrown out antitrust lawsuits filed by Chegg and Penske Media that challenged Google’s use of AI-generated search summaries. The plaintiffs argued that Google’s products, including AI overviews powered by models such as Gemini, replicated website content and caused declines in organic traffic to their sites. Chegg said Google effectively scraped its educational materials, while Penske — owner of publications including Rolling Stone and Variety — complained that indexed sites had their content harvested for AI answers without a way to opt out.

In dismissing the cases, US District Judge Amit Mehta concluded the allegations did not show legally actionable conduct under antitrust law because there was no formal agreement between Google and the plaintiffs. Mehta emphasized that the companies had only described an expectation that Google would send search traffic to sites that publish content for free, and that such an expectation does not constitute the kind of agreement antitrust statutes address.

The decision follows Google’s request for dismissal earlier in the year and arrives against the backdrop of other legal scrutiny of Google’s search business. Mehta has previously overseen the Department of Justice’s long-running antitrust case against Google, in which he found some violations of the law but did not grant the government’s full penalty demands. The latest ruling leaves publishers with fewer antitrust avenues to challenge how AI features surface and reuse online content.

Neither the opinion nor the reports indicate that the judge assessed broader policy or regulatory remedies for the effects of AI-generated search results; instead, the ruling focused narrowly on whether the facts alleged meet the legal standards for an antitrust claim.