A US federal court judge has dismissed an antitrust claim that Google’s search amounts to a monopoly of digital news market and harms the business model of publishers.
The lawsuit, lodged by Arkansas based publishers Helena World Chronicle and Emmerich Newspapers, included three main claims.
The claims included that Google was using publishers’ content for free, diverting traffic away from publisher sites, and using publisher’s content to power its AI-generated answers.
According to the filings, these actions undermined the publisher’s revenue and distorted competition in the news ecosystem.
The publishers went as far as to describe Google as “America’s largest publisher”, arguing the tech giant’s monopoly on search essentially backed them into a corner. The publishers alleged they had little choice but to cooperate and lend their content in exchange for better visibility. The claimants also said that when publishers refused to cooperate, they risked being downgraded in search results.
US district judge Amit P. Mehta said the publishers did not successfully prove Google’s monopoly on online news and any subsequent harm that resulted.
The publishers had proven their revenue and traffic had declined due to Google’s behaviour, but these harms did not meet the legal threshold required to prove anti-competitive conduct under US antitrust law.
In the ruling, Mehta did not deny that Google held a monopoly but the “Plaintiffs are 10 to 20 years too late; those claims are now stale.”
The order is appealable. The case is on file with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
