US District Judge Amit Mehta has dismissed a pair of antitrust lawsuits filed by Chegg and Penske Media Corporation, the parent company of Rolling Stone. The rulings, issued on Wednesday, reject the publishers' claims that Google abused its monopoly power through its AI-powered search features. Reuters first reported the dismissals.
Chegg and Penske Media filed the lawsuits last year, alleging that Google coerced publishers into supplying content for its AI Overviews feature for free. The publishers argued that Google threatened to remove non-compliant sites from search results, effectively driving away web traffic. Judge Mehta ruled that these specific allegations do not satisfy the requirements of antitrust law. The decision concludes the legal challenge brought by the two publishers against the tech giant's search practices.