Publishers' Google suit tossed

A federal judge in Washington threw out a newspaper publishers’ antitrust case against Google on March 20, handing Google a win in a fight over search, news traffic and payment for publisher content. (law.justia.com) United States District Judge Amit P. Mehta dismissed claims by Helena World Chronicle and Emmerich Newspapers, two publishers that sued Google and Alphabet in December 2023 in the District of Columbia. The 41-page opinion granted Google’s motion to dismiss the amended complaint. (law.justia.com) The publishers said Google used its power in general search to become “America’s largest news publisher” and to take value from news content shown in search results pages and generative artificial intelligence products. Mehta said the plaintiffs lacked antitrust standing on the search-market claims and did not plausibly plead monopoly power in an online news market. (law.justia.com) Antitrust law does not punish size by itself; it requires a court to identify a market, show monopoly power in that market, and connect the alleged conduct to a legally recognized injury. Mehta said this complaint fell short on those threshold steps before the case could move toward discovery or trial. (law.justia.com) The ruling narrows one path publishers tried to use against Google even as courts and regulators keep pressing other cases against the company. In August 2024, Mehta ruled in a separate Justice Department case that Google illegally maintained monopoly power in general search, and in April 2025 another federal court held Google liable for monopolizing key open-web advertising technology markets. (harvardlawreview.org) (justice.gov) That split matters for publishers because the dismissed case targeted Google’s role in online news distribution, while the 2025 Justice Department win focused on the ad tools publishers use to sell display ads. The Justice Department said that ad-tech ruling found Google harmed “publishing customers” and competition in the open web. (justice.gov) The publishers’ complaint also reached Google’s generative artificial intelligence products, arguing that Google was using publisher material in new answer systems without compensation. Mehta’s dismissal means those allegations, as pleaded in this antitrust case, will not go forward. (law.justia.com) Google argued the publishers’ alleged injuries were too indirect and that the complaint tried to define an online news market around traffic counts rather than a legally workable antitrust market. Press Gazette reported the publishers had pointed to 767.8 billion visits to Google and YouTube between March 2023 and March 2024 to argue Google held a 66 percent share of online news. (pressgazette.co.uk) Reuters, as quoted by Competition Policy International, reported Google said it was pleased with the ruling. The dismissal closes this case in its current form, but it does not end the broader legal scrutiny of how Google controls search and the ad systems many publishers still rely on. (pymnts.com)