Judge Dismisses Penske and Chegg Antitrust Suits Over AI Overviews: 'An Expectation Is Not an Agreement'

A US federal judge has dismissed the antitrust suits that Penske Media and Chegg brought against Google over AI Overviews. Judge Amit Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia found that the publishers had not pleaded an agreement with Google, only an expectation that Google would keep sending them traffic. Reports of the ruling were published on 1 October 2026.

What the court decided

Penske Media, which owns Rolling Stone, Variety, Billboard and Deadline, argued that Google uses its search dominance to force publishers to hand over content for AI Overviews as the price of appearing in search. Press Gazette reports the claims included a Sherman Act violation and an unlawful tying arrangement, meaning that crawling for search and use in AI Overviews are bundled together.

Judge Mehta granted Google's motion to dismiss. The central passage, as quoted in coverage of the opinion:

"Plaintiffs have pleaded only that they have an 'expectation' that Google will send them search traffic if they make their content available for free. But an expectation is not an agreement. It is simply how a general search engine works."

He also found the plaintiffs had not pleaded "any actual agreement" under which Google promised to sell them any traffic "in exchange for 'buying' their content". Reporting on the opinion says the judge accepted that the publishers had been harmed, but that antitrust law was not a substitute for legislation.

The Wrap reports the dismissal was without prejudice, which would let Penske refile. Neither Google nor Penske had commented at the time of those reports, and none of the coverage we found mentions an appeal or an amended complaint.

What this does and doesn't change for publishers

This is a ruling on whether the complaint stated a legal claim. It is not a finding about whether AI Overviews reduce clicks, and it does not change anything about how Google Search works. Three points follow.

• The legal route is narrower than it looked. The "forced bargain" theory, that publishers trade content for traffic and Google broke the trade, needs an actual agreement to stand on. The court found none. Other routes, such as regulatory action like the CMA's proposals on Google search, are separate and still moving.
• The practical controls are the ones Google already documents. Google's AI features documentation says publishers can limit what is shown from their pages with nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet and noindex, and that Google-Extended limits "AI training and grounding in some of Google's other systems". It also states that AI is "integral to how Search functions", which is why robots.txt directives for Googlebot are the control for managing access. There is no separate AI Overviews opt-out that leaves normal search visibility untouched.
• Traffic loss still has to be measured, not assumed. The suit rested on declines in impressions and referrals after AI Overviews launched. If you are weighing the cost of snippet controls, compare your own Search Console data first. Our post on Mueller's comments about mapping positions in AI reporting covers why that comparison is harder than it sounds.

What to watch

Whether Penske refiles is the obvious next step. Coverage also notes that a separate antitrust suit by the Daily Mail and Gannett, which concerns Google's ad tech rather than AI Overviews, was allowed to proceed. That is a different case and should not be read as a signal about this one.

Sources

• Press Gazette: Penske AI Overviews lawsuit dismissed because 'no formal bargain' struck with Google
• The Wrap: Penske Media lawsuit against Google over AI search summaries dismissed by judge
• Google Search Central: AI features and your website