US District Judge Amit Mehta has dismissed antitrust cases brought by Chegg and Penske Media Corporation over Google’s AI-powered search features. Chegg and Penske, which owns Rolling Stone and Variety, filed the lawsuits in 2025.
Mehta concluded that the companies’ allegations did not establish an antitrust-law violation, as first reported by Ars Technica. The judge wrote that an expectation of receiving search referrals does not constitute an agreement with Google.
The complaints targeted AI answers and content use
Chegg alleged that the search giant collected educational material and used it to help its Gemini model reproduce comparable content. Penske argued that AI-generated answers in search results diverted visitors away from publishers’ own websites.
Both cases centered on AI Overviews and related uses of material produced by outside sites. The plaintiffs said the company’s dominance in search forced websites to supply content for those features without payment, because blocking that use could cost them visibility in conventional results.
Referral traffic is at the center of the dispute
The decision matters because publishers have long depended on search referrals to reach readers and generate revenue. When a search engine provides a direct answer, users may have less reason to visit the source site, a shift that carries particular weight for companies such as Penske that operate several media brands.
The Chegg case also reflects a related concern for education platforms: material that once drew users to a specialized service may become part of answers generated inside a general-purpose search product. Mehta’s ruling means those concerns, as presented in these complaints, did not meet the threshold for an antitrust claim.
It remains unclear whether Chegg or Penske will amend their complaints or appeal. The available rulings do not say whether the dismissals were with prejudice, and they do not provide Mehta’s detailed analysis of the company’s market power or the alleged content-scraping practices.
This article was produced with AI assistance from multi-source reporting and is published under our editorial standards.
