# Judge throws out two antitrust suits over Google AI… | QANATONE > Penske Media and Chegg argued that AI summaries were draining their traffic. Judge Mehta ruled that expecting traffic is not an agreement,… Kaynak: https://www.qanatone.com/en/haber/ai-overviews-davalari-reddedildi/ --- [News](https://www.qanatone.com/en/haber/) # Judge throws out two antitrust suits over Google AI Overviews 1 Oct 2026 3 min read News · Search Penske Media and Chegg argued that AI summaries were draining their traffic. Judge Mehta ruled that expecting traffic is not an agreement, so the antitrust claims failed. ## What happened On October 1, US District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, DC dismissed two antitrust suits against Google over its AI Overviews. The plaintiffs were Penske Media Corporation, owner of Variety, Rolling Stone and The Hollywood Reporter, and education company Chegg. Both argued that the summaries at the top of search results use their content without sending readers to their sites, in breach of the Sherman Act. Mehta granted Google's motion to dismiss in full. ## What AI Overviews are AI Overviews are the AI-written summaries Google places above search results, built from web pages and shown with source links. They answer the question on the results page, so users often have no reason to click, a trend known as zero-click search that hits sites living on ads and affiliate income. ## The reasoning The ruling turns on one line: "An expectation is not an agreement." Publishers opened their content to free crawling expecting traffic in return, but no formal bargain ever bound Google to deliver it. Because they acceded to crawling voluntarily, a drop in referrals cannot be treated as a coerced deal under antitrust law. The judge also rejected the claim that AI Overviews are a separate product illegally tied to search, finding them part of a single search experience. **⅓+** share of organic affiliate revenue Penske says it lost from peak to the end of 2024 ## What publishers argued Penske described sharp declines in search traffic and referrals, lost advertising and subscription income, and no real choice: blocking use in AI summaries risked losing visibility in search. Mehta wrote that he did not take those harms lightly and was not unsympathetic to publishers' position, but said antitrust law was not the remedy. ## Who it affects The decision is a significant early precedent for antitrust theories aimed at AI summaries in the US. Publishers may now lean on copyright or contract arguments instead. Jason Kint of Digital Content Next said Google is using its dominance to undermine the open web and the economics of original journalism. Google, for its part, is rolling out opt-out controls and testing small payments to publishers through Search Console. ## What's next It is not yet clear whether the plaintiffs will appeal. The bigger shift is commercial: as search engines keep users on the results page, every business that earns from clicks has to rethink its traffic model, and more licensing and payment deals between publishers and AI companies are expected. ## What it means for your business Don't wait for the courts. Measure visibility beyond clicks, including whether AI answers cite your brand and pages. Pages with clear answers, current figures and structured data are the ones that get quoted in both classic and AI search. ## More articles [Data · Performance ### We tested award-winning agency sites: most fail on mobile 1 Oct 2026 · 4 min](https://www.qanatone.com/en/haber/ajans-sitelerinde-gozden-kacan-hiz/)[News · Policy ### Fund probe arrests reach 58 as regulator opens refund accounts 1 Oct 2026 · 1 min](https://www.qanatone.com/en/haber/fon-sorusturmasi-iade-hesabi-tutuklama/)[News · Policy ### California subpoenas OpenAI over agents that escaped testing 1 Oct 2026 · 3 min](https://www.qanatone.com/en/haber/kaliforniya-openai-celp/)[News · Models ### Tavus's Griffin passed as human in 48% of video calls 1 Oct 2026 · 3 min](https://www.qanatone.com/en/haber/tavus-griffin-video-turing-testi/)[News · Models ### Anthropic measures open model GLM-5.3's cyber offence skills 30 Sep 2026 · 1 min](https://www.qanatone.com/en/haber/anthropic-glm-5-3-siber-yetenek/)[News · Science ### Anthropic: robots can do most physical tasks but cost too much 30 Sep 2026 · 1 min](https://www.qanatone.com/en/haber/anthropic-robot-is-analizi/)[News · Payments ### BIST 100 falls 2.79%, drops below 12,000 30 Sep 2026 · 1 min](https://www.qanatone.com/en/haber/bist-100-fon-sorusturmasi-dususu/)[News · Payments ### Weak US data cuts rate-hike bets, bitcoin steadies 30 Sep 2026 · 1 min](https://www.qanatone.com/en/haber/bitcoin-eylul-faiz-beklentisi/)