Policymakers Should Reject Calls to Freeze the Evolution of Information Provision

Chegg’s and Penske Media Corporation’s (PMC) antitrust complaints against Google are meritless, as the recent dismissal of their cases shows. If policymakers care about competition and innovation in the information market, they should be no more sympathetic to the plaintiffs’ plight than the antitrust laws are.

Chegg, an education technology company, and PMC, a publisher whose properties include Rolling Stone and Billboard, have sued Google over its use of publishers’ content in AI-generated search summaries. They allege that Google exploits its dominance in online search to compel publishers to supply content for features such as AI Overviews without compensation, and that these features reduce the traffic publishers receive from search results. A federal judge recently dismissed both lawsuits following a consolidated hearing.

Chegg and PMC filed lawsuits against Google in 2025, alleging that the company illegally leveraged its monopoly power in the online search market to force publishers to provide content without compensation for use in AI-generated summaries. Their lawsuits advance several antitrust theories, including reciprocal dealing, unlawful maintenance of its monopoly in general search, and attempting to monopolize the markets for “online publishing” (PMC) and “online educational publishing” (Chegg). PMC also alleges that Google unlawfully ties general search to the purportedly separate product market of AI Overviews.

On September 30, U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta roundly dismissed each of these counts.

Mehta rejected the reciprocal dealing claims for want of an actual agreement between Google and publishers; dismissed the general search monopoly maintenance claims for the plaintiffs’ utter inability to establish antitrust standing; and threw out the attempted monopolization claims on the grounds that the online publishing and online educational publishing markets presented by PMC and Chegg were “implausibly overbroad” and “hopelessly vague,” respectively. Finally, Mehta dismissed PMC’s tying claim for failure to plausibly allege that AI Overviews and general search are separate product markets.

Although Mehta’s dismissal was emphatic, he expressed sympathy for “online creators whose content Google takes and repurposes without compensation,” particularly in the form of summaries and AI Overviews at the top of search results. Quoting the decision in Citizens for Resp. & Ethics in Washington v. Cheney (2009), Mehta wrote, “‘[t]o the extent that this case highlights any deficiencies’ in the reach of the antitrust laws, ‘that is an issue for Congress [or regulators] to consider.’”

Indeed, to the extent the antitrust laws do not reach certain conduct, Congress should alter them if it wants them to reach that conduct. But Congress should neither alter the existing antitrust laws nor create new ones to force search engine providers like Google to accept the preferred terms of online publishers or other counterparties.

There is good reason to doubt the plaintiffs’ heroic claim that Google’s current business model will have dire consequences for the “overall quality and quantity of the information accessible on the Internet.” For decades, Google’s free search service has made it easier for people to find and access an enormous range of information. But Google is a means of discovering information, not the source of that information itself. A decline in traffic from Google does not necessarily mean that information will disappear from the Internet or become inaccessible to the public.

Of course, the past need not predict the future. It is possible that Google’s AI-generated summaries could undermine the economic incentives to produce high-quality information over time, even if users value access to that information today. Google might capture more value by answering users’ questions directly than by directing them to the sources of those answers, while failing to account for the long-term consequences for content creation. However, given the company’s multibillion-dollar capital expenditures, which will be depreciated over years if not decades, such short-term thinking is implausible. Moreover, a possibility is not proof that Google’s business model will produce the dire consequences the plaintiffs predict, much less a demonstration that industry regulation is appropriate.

As things currently stand, users derive great value from AI-generated summaries as well as other tools that appear at the top of search results, such as Google Maps and Google Flights, and online creators from The New York Times and Substack to Fox News and YouTube continue publishing. The plaintiffs’ allegation that introducing AI-generated summaries reduced traffic to their websites suggests that consumers value this feature of search engines. This is also evidenced by Yahoo, Bing, and even smaller competitors such as DuckDuckGo offering similar AI-generated answers.

The “providing answers to questions” market has evolved since time immemorial: from traveling far and wide to ask theologians and philosophers questions face-to-face; to purchasing ornate, handwritten manuscripts whose expense was prohibitive to most; to buying substantially cheaper books following Gutenberg’s development of the movable-type printing press; and, more recently and in relatively rapid succession, to using technologies including the typewriter, telegraph, telephone, radio, television, the Internet, and generative AI.

At each point along this journey, new technology has substituted some demand for earlier methods or products used in the “providing answers to questions” market. For example, online travel platforms such as Tripadvisor have largely displaced demand for traditional guidebooks like Frommer’s and Fodor’s as sources of travel recommendations. By enabling anyone with a free account to leave a review, these platforms have dramatically increased the availability of destination information worldwide without reducing the amount of information produced (indeed, expanding it).

As a consequence of technological evolution, information has never been more readily and cheaply available to those who wish to learn. This progress should not be frozen in amber because Chegg wants students to visit its website to copy answers to textbook problems. Policymakers should be skeptical of calls for intervention. After all, protecting businesses from the effects of technological change is not the same as promoting competition and innovation.