AI Overviews

A US federal judge dismissed antitrust lawsuits from Chegg and Penske Media — publisher of Rolling Stone, Billboard, and Variety — that accused Google of using AI Overviews to siphon their web traffic. Judge Amit Mehta ruled the publishers’ claims “fail to get out of the starting gate,” writing that an expectation of search traffic “is simply how a general search engine works.” He added that antitrust laws don’t substitute for Congress’s power to address economic harm from AI innovation. ...

Google’s AI Overviews can keep summarizing the web’s content. The publishers who said that practice broke the law just lost twice. On Wednesday, US District Judge Amit Mehta threw out antitrust lawsuits filed by education company Chegg and publishing giant Penske Media, the owner of Rolling Stone, Billboard, and Variety, which accused Google of repackaging their content into AI Overviews and bleeding away their web traffic. Mehta, who also delivered the 2024 ruling that Google illegally monopolized online search, said the new claims against the company “fail to get out of the starting gate.” ...