A federal judge dismissed two antitrust suits filed in 2025 that targeted Google’s AI-driven search results. The complaints came from Chegg, an education platform that said Google scraped its content to train Gemini models, and from Penske, a media company that alleged a loss of traffic after its articles were harvested for AI answers without an opt-out option.
Judge Mehta ruled that antitrust law does not apply because Google never entered into a formal agreement with either Chegg or Penske, meaning the alleged conduct does not meet the statutory definition of anticompetitive behavior. The decision aligns with the court’s view that the technical consequences of AI search, while concerning to publishers, fall outside the scope of traditional antitrust enforcement.
The dismissal comes after the Department of Justice’s long-running antitrust case against Google’s search dominance, in which the government concluded the company had violated the law but secured only modest penalties. According to Ars Technica, the DOJ’s outcome did not result in the harsh sanctions the agency had sought, underscoring the difficulty of imposing severe remedies on entrenched digital platforms.
While the court cleared Google of antitrust liability, the judge noted that the company’s AI search practices may still be unfair to web publishers. Legal experts anticipate further challenges in U.S. courts, but without new legislation the burden of proof remains high. Lawmakers have been slow to adapt existing statutes to the AI era, leaving publishers with limited recourse domestically.
International regulators are moving more aggressively. The European Commission is reviewing the same issues and is known for taking a stricter view of Big Tech conduct. In the United Kingdom, authorities have ordered Google to provide an opt-out mechanism for sites that wish to remain in organic search results while preventing their content from being used in AI answers.
Google has announced a pilot program that would pay publishers directly for the use of their material in AI-generated answers, but early reports indicate the scheme has not been well received by the publishing community. The company’s effort reflects an attempt to address concerns about content harvesting, yet the lack of publisher enthusiasm suggests that voluntary compensation may not resolve the underlying tension between AI search and traditional web traffic.