Online education company files antitrust lawsuit over Google’s AI overviews

Issue 23 

In February 2025, online education company Chegg, Inc. filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google LLC and Alphabet Inc., alleging that Google is using Chegg’s and other publishers content in its AI Overviews and Featured Snippets to turn Google into a destination rather than a search tool, resulting in lower traffic to Chegg’s website, and threatening its business.[i]  

This is believed to be the first lawsuit where a single company has alleged Google violated antitrust law through its AI overviews.[ii] Google launched AI overviews in May 2024, and quickly drew criticism for early AI overviews that missed the mark, such as suggesting the use of glue to help cheese stick to pizza.[iii]   

Google’s Alleged Disruption of the Traditional Relationship Between Web Publishers and Users 

The complaint frames traditional search engine relationships as follows: 

Google is a search engine that serves as an intermediary and engages in transactions with three groups: 

• Users: the search engine provides search results to users in exchange for users’ attention; 

• Advertisers: the search engine monetizes users’ attention by charging advertisers for ads that appear among search results; and  

• Web Publishers: web publishers permit their content to be indexed by Google to populate its search results, which are viewed by users, resulting in traffic to a web publishers’ website.[iv] 

The complaint explains that in 2024, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia found that Google had monopoly power in the search engine market, with a market share of 89.2 percent for general search services, and 94.9 percent for mobile devices.[v] Chegg alleges that Google has disrupted traditional search engine relationships by forcing web publishers to supply their content for uses that preempt or cannibalize web publishers’ search referrals, such as prompting AI large language models to summarize content in AI overviews that appear before search results, and excerpting portions of publishers’ content in “Featured Snippets,” resulting in lower rates of click through to the sources Google utilizes to generate the answers, if Google even provides links to the sources.[vi] Chegg further alleges that publishers are forced to acquiesce to Google’s misuse of their content because Google exercises monopoly power in online search.[vii]  

The complaint alleges two counts of reciprocal dealing, tortious conduct, unlawful monopoly leveraging, unlawful monopolization, and unlawful attempted monopolization, all in violation of the Sherman Act, as well as common law unjust enrichment.[viii]  

At the time of preparation of this article for publication, Google and Alphabet have not filed responses to the complaint. 

Consider Your Clients AI-Related Claims or Liabilities 

Have you considered whether your clients may have AI-related claims or liabilities? Chegg, Inc. v. Google LLC et al. is one of over 60 AI-related lawsuits I’m tracking in areas including copyright infringement, copyright and patent applications, privacy, discrimination, facial recognition, healthcare, libel, lie detection, wiretapping, FOIA, malware, school suspensions, deepfakes, wire fraud, wrongful death, and antitrust. You can find summaries of all of these cases in Chapter 4 of A Lawyer’s Practical Guide to AI. 

Thanks for being here. 

Jennifer Ballard 

Good Journey Consulting

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[i] Complaint at 1-3, Chegg, Inc. v. Google LLC et al., No. 1:25-cv-00543 (D.D.C. filed Feb. 24, 2025). 

[ii] Jody Godoy, Google’s AI previews erode the internet, US edtech company says in lawsuit, Reuters (Feb. 25, 2025 7:21 PST), https://www.reuters.com/legal/googles-ai-previews-erode-internet-edtech-company-says-lawsuit-2025-02-24/. 

[iii] Hannah Shaw, Some of the funniest Google AI overview results so far, it works (Sept. 5, 2024), https://itworks.agency/some-of-the-funniest-google-ai-overview-results-so-far/. 

[iv] Id. at 10-11. 

[v] Id. at 16-17, citing United States v. Google, No. 20-cv-03010, Dkt. No. 1033, 2024 WL 3647498 (D.D.C. Aug. 5, 2024). 

[vi] Id. at 2-3. 

[vii] Id. at 3.   

[viii] Id. at 57-64.