A federal judge has thrown out the antitrust lawsuits that Chegg and Penske Media filed against Google over AI Overviews. In a 41-page opinion dated September 30, US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that the publishers' hope of getting search traffic in return for letting Google crawl their sites is not an agreement. He did not dispute that publishers are losing readers. His message was that antitrust law is the wrong tool and that lawmakers should decide what to do about it.

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What the publishers argued

Chegg, the education company, and Penske Media, parent of Rolling Stone, made a similar case. They said Google forces publishers to let AI Overviews use their content if they want to stay in search results, and that the summaries then keep readers from clicking through. TokenPost describes the choice as allowing AI summaries or risking lower visibility. The companies said this cost them audience and revenue.

Penske added a second claim, that Google unlawfully tied AI Overviews to its search engine. The two cases were heard together in August, according to TokenPost.

What Mehta decided

Technology.org reports that Mehta granted Google's motions to dismiss in full, ending both cases at the pleading stage. That means the judge ruled on the complaints as written, without a trial or a look at evidence.

Three points did the work. On the agreement claim, Penske asked the court to find an implied deal between Google and publishers. Mehta declined, writing that an expectation of receiving traffic in exchange for free content does not amount to an agreement. On tying, he found Penske had not plausibly shown that search and AI Overviews are separate products under antitrust law. Technology.org adds that he pointed to a tension in Penske's own filing: it argued readers satisfied by AI Overviews have less reason to click elsewhere, which sits awkwardly with calling AI Overviews a separate product.

The third point is about injury. Lost referral traffic and ad revenue, the judge said, are not direct antitrust injuries caused by Google. TokenPost says the ruling also found the companies had not established antitrust standing.

The pointer to Congress

The part many commentators picked up on is what Mehta said about the harm. He wrote that he was "not unsympathetic" to the publishers, and that antitrust law cannot stand in for the power of legislators to deal with economic harm caused by new technology, according to Technology.org and Newscord. FourWeekMBA reads the opinion as saying the grievance is real but the legal theory is wrong. That is an analyst's interpretation, though it matches the language reported elsewhere.

Mehta is also the judge who ruled in 2024 that Google holds an illegal monopoly in online search. That makes the outcome more notable. The same court that found Google dominant in search declined to extend antitrust law to AI Overviews on these facts.

The practical result, per Relevant Audience, is that no court order now forces changes to how AI Overviews use publisher content, and the main US antitrust route publishers tried is closed, at least as these complaints were pleaded. That last qualifier matters. A differently built case could fare differently.

The licensing side deal

There is a separate development. The Information reported that Google is paying roughly 100 publishers in a pilot that covers AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini, according to Zerohour and Gokhshtein's summary of that report. Neither source gives terms, and we have not seen the original article.

If accurate, it points to where this is heading: voluntary licensing deals, negotiated one publisher at a time, rather than a court-ordered remedy. That favors large publishers with bargaining power. Smaller sites and companies like Chegg, whose business depends on search traffic, have less leverage. We covered another AI Mode experiment from Google in our report on the Flipkart Buy button test inside Gemini, which raises a similar question about who keeps the customer when an AI answer sits between the user and the site.

What happens now

The coverage we reviewed does not say whether Chegg or Penske will appeal, and neither company has been quoted on the next step in the sources we found. Because the dismissal came at the pleading stage, the plaintiffs may have options, but we cannot say what they are.

The policy fight moves to legislators and regulators, as Mehta suggested. Whether Congress acts is a different question, and nothing in the coverage points to a bill ready to move. In the meantime, publishers have three choices: sign licensing deals if offered, block crawlers at the cost of search visibility, or keep litigating on other legal theories. None of them restores the traffic that AI Overviews took.

FAQ

What did the judge rule in the Chegg and Penske cases?

Judge Amit Mehta dismissed both antitrust lawsuits on September 30, 2026, finding the publishers had not plausibly shown an agreement, a separate tied product, or direct antitrust injury.

Does this mean AI Overviews are legal under antitrust law?

Not exactly. The court only found these complaints insufficient at the pleading stage. It did not decide that Google's conduct is lawful in every case.

Are publishers getting paid by Google?

The Information reports Google is paying about 100 publishers in a pilot covering AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini. Terms have not been published.

Can Chegg and Penske appeal?

The coverage we reviewed does not say. Neither company's plans have been reported.