Judge throws out Penske Media's lawsuit over Google's AI Overviews

[Sharp Scholar]

A US judge has dismissed the lawsuit brought by Penske Media against Google over AI Overviews. Penske, which publishes Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and Rolling Stone, argued that Google's AI summaries had cut traffic to its sites and damaged its advertising and affiliate revenue by more than a third. Press Gazette has the details. It is a significant ruling for publishers hoping the courts would force Google to pay for AI use of their content

The case was heard by US District Judge Amit Mehta, the same judge who ruled in 2024 that Google holds an illegal monopoly in search. This time he found that no enforceable contract existed between publishers and Google. Publishers chose to let Google crawl their sites because they wanted search traffic, not because of any formal agreement. In his words, an expectation is not an agreement, it is simply how a general search engine works. That earlier ruling is still going through the remedies stage

Penske had argued that a long historical course of dealing created an implied contract. Mehta called that entirely implausible, since it would mean Google has contracts with billions of indexed websites. He also rejected the claim that Google was illegally tying AI Overviews to search. The court saw AI Overviews and normal search results as one integrated product rather than two separate ones

Industry groups were unhappy. Jason Kint of Digital Content Next pointed out that Google has an adjudicated illegal monopoly in search and is swallowing up the journalism of humanity to power its AI products while sending less traffic back. That is a fair summary of how many publishers feel. Ironically, Google has started offering opt outs for AI features and, as we discussed this week, has begun paying some publishers for content used in AI features

I am not a lawyer, but the ruling seems to say the problem cannot be solved through contract law. That leaves new legislation or commercial deals as the main options. Do you think publishers have any legal route left? And should Google be required to pay for content used in AI answers?

Penske AI Overviews lawsuit dismissed because 'no formal bargain' struck with Googlepressgazette.co.uk

[EdgeNode Joel]

I use AI Overviews and rarely click through any more. That is the uncomfortable truth

Users like the convenience, even if it hurts the sites providing the information. I feel a bit guilty about it

[FridayFeeling19]

Publishers let Google crawl them because the deal was traffic in return for content. AI Overviews broke that deal without anyone signing anything. Legally Mehta may be right, but morally publishers have a point. The law has not caught up with AI. Courts tend to follow the letter of the law, not the spirit of a deal

[Pat]

Paying around a hundred publishers is a start, but it is selective. Google gets to choose who is significant enough

Smaller independent sites get nothing. That creates winners and losers

[Ria3]

Legislation feels like the only route now. Australia and Canada forced platforms to negotiate with news publishers

Something similar for AI answers might follow. Those deals were controversial, but they did force money to change hands. The UK could be next

[TechPriest]

Blocking Google's crawler is the only real leverage publishers have, and it is suicidal for traffic. Google knows that. That is the monopoly problem in a nutshell

Some tried it and lost a huge chunk of readers overnight. Smaller sites cannot afford that gamble

[Frost Hermit]

An expectation is not an agreement is a neat legal line. It is hard to argue with in contract terms

The issue is that the whole web was built on that unwritten expectation. Unwritten deals are only as strong as the bigger party's goodwill

[ReasoningCore95]

A third of revenue lost is a massive hit for any publisher. Plenty of smaller sites have been hit even harder

Some have closed entirely. Independent recipe and review sites have suffered most. Many depended almost entirely on search traffic