Publishers can exclude webpages from being used for AI Overviews, but they will still be listed in traditional search results, even after a federal court dismissed antitrust lawsuits over Google’s AI Overviews. In a decision reported by Reuters on October 1, 2026, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, sitting in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, dismissed antitrust lawsuits from publisher Penske Media Corporation (PMC) and education technology company Chegg, which had claimed Google’s AI Overviews repackaged their content and drew readers away from their sites. The ruling sets a high bar for antitrust claims tied to AI search, and it leaves copyright and compensation questions open.
What the two companies claimed
PMC and Chegg filed their suits last year. Both argued Google used AI Overviews and its index of the web to pull traffic away from their ad businesses, which they said cut their revenue. Chegg added a separate claim: that Google was effectively requiring sites to supply their content for AI scraping or risk being left out of search results. According to AI Tech Daily, which reported the docket numbers, the cases are Chegg Inc. v. Google LLC, D.D.C. No. 25-cv-543, and Penske Media Corp. v. Google, No. 25-cv-3192. Penske publishes Variety, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter and Rolling Stone.
Press Gazette, as cited by Techlantis, reported that Penske said its organic affiliate revenue fell by more than a third from its peak to the end of 2024, and that search impressions and referrals dropped after AI Overviews rolled out. The publishers argued that in a competitive market Google would pay to republish their work or to train its AI on it, Reuters reported. Google has denied wrongdoing and said it has no obligation to index publisher content on the publishers’ preferred terms.
Why Judge Mehta dismissed both cases
Judge Mehta, the same judge who found in 2024 that Google held a monopoly in online search, concluded that neither company stated a viable antitrust claim. He found that neither plaintiff showed Google was using its monopoly to obtain free material for its AI, or that Google was seeking an unfair advantage in digital publishing. In the memorandum opinion he wrote: 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.
The court, as reported by The Verge, added that it was not "unsympathetic to the situation publishers now find themselves in," but held that antitrust rules cannot replace a decision by lawmakers on the economic impact of new technology. According to Affiverse, Mehta also found Penske had not established Google Search and AI Overviews as two separate products, which its tying claim required, and noted the ruling does not settle copyright, licensing or compensation questions. AI Tech Daily reported it was the second time this year Mehta rejected similar publisher claims, after a dismissal in March.
What the ruling leaves for site owners
The decision does not change the practical pressure publishers describe. More and more of the search results page is taken up by AI Mode and AI Overviews, and for the sites that wrote the original content, it can mean fewer people click through. One control remains: a site can exclude individual pages from being used in AI Overviews while those pages still appear in standard search results. It’s easy to see why that trade-off might not be a satisfying compromise.
Measuring the effect is getting harder to read cleanly. A Q2 2026 report from Advanced Web Ranking, summarized by Search Engine Journal, found desktop click-through rate at the top two organic positions down by a combined 5.27 percentage points from Q1 to Q2, while mobile rose by a combined 6.59 points. Those figures add two positions together and are not tied to any specific site. The comparison period also crosses April 27, 2026, the date Google reported it fixed a Search Console impressions logging error, so a CTR shift across that window can reflect the measurement change rather than how people actually clicked.
What to check in your site audit
Confirm these kinds of controls and ask these people, not a specific command to run:
- Check whether your pages use the snippet and preview controls that govern how much text Google may display, and confirm who on your team manages them.
- Confirm your site’s rules for AI crawlers match what you actually want, since excluding a page from AI Overviews is a separate decision from staying in regular search.
- Review your metadata the same way you review body copy. Google updated its AI content guidance on October 1 to say generative output should be manually fact-checked before publishing, and the review line now covers titles, meta descriptions, structured data and image alt text, as Search Engine Journal reported.
- Think about which organic click counts you watch, and decide who on your team reviews them.
What to do now
- Decide, page by page, whether you want each page used in AI Overviews, then confirm the exclusion controls reflect that choice while the page stays in standard search.
- In your Q1-to-Q2 Search Console comparisons, keep in mind that April 27, 2026, the date Google reports it fixed the impressions error, could be a point where measurement might have shifted before reading a CTR change as people clicking differently.
- Consider which performance signals beyond clicks belong in your reporting, and agree who on your team reviews them.
- Fact-check AI-generated titles, meta descriptions, structured data and alt text before publishing, the fields Google says can appear in Search.
- Watch policy developments as well as court cases. In June 2026 the UK Competition and Markets Authority said "publishers will now have effective tools to prevent their content being used to power AI features in search, such as AI Overviews" under a new conduct requirement for Google.
The U.S. ruling does not close off other challenges. The Information reported that Google is paying around 100 publishers for their contributions to AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini as part of a pilot program, according to The Verge.
FAQ
Who sued Google over AI Overviews?
Publisher Penske Media Corporation (PMC) and education technology company Chegg filed the lawsuits, claiming Google’s AI Overviews pulled readers from their sites and hurt their ad businesses. Penske publishes brands including Variety, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter and Rolling Stone.
Why did the judge dismiss the AI Overviews lawsuits?
Judge Amit Mehta found that neither company showed Google was using a search monopoly to get free material for its AI or seeking an unfair advantage in digital publishing. He wrote that the publishers pleaded only an expectation of search traffic, which is not an agreement, so the claims did not meet the bar for an antitrust violation.
Can site owners keep their content out of AI Overviews?
Yes. A site can exclude individual pages from being used in AI Overviews while those pages still appear in standard search results. As AI summaries fill more of the results page, that trade-off offers less protection than before.
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