Photo Credit: Trac Vu
Google is doubling down on its push to dismiss Penske Media Corporation’s amended antitrust suit, which allegedly “remains legally defective in every way.”
The tech giant and its Alphabet parent just recently moved to toss the high-stakes complaint with prejudice. We last checked in on the legal battle closer to December’s start, when the Billboard and Rolling Stone owner PMC fired off an amended action.
In short, the retooled suit touched on many of the same points: Google has allegedly abused its purported search monopoly by compelling publishers to assent to AI summaries and training.
Overall, said publishers are allegedly made to choose between giving up a significant amount of search traffic by exiting Google results altogether or effectively seeing their traffic cannibalized (and their revenue consequently reduced) by AI summaries.
On the opposite side of the courtroom confrontation, Google has for months been looking to nix the suit; the amended action delayed this effort. But now, the search mainstay has kicked off the new year with a fresh stab at dismissal.
At the top level, Google called out the complaint’s alleged overlap with a different antitrust action levied by educational services platform Chegg. Among other things, the PMC and Chegg plaintiffs are “represented by the same lawyers.”
“All told, PMC and its counsel are now on their fourth complaint challenging the same alleged conduct based on substantially the same legal theories,” Google vented in its dismissal filing. “PMC’s Amended Complaint addresses none of the dispositive defects Google has repeatedly highlighted across its two motions to dismiss in Chegg and prior motion to dismiss here.
“PMC and its counsel have been on notice of these defects for almost a year. That they have made no attempt to cure them only confirms that they cannot do so. PMC has now had multiple opportunities to plead its best case, and it remains legally defective in every way,” the company continued.
Elsewhere in the document, Google defended its AI search results as an innovation benefiting consumers – not a maneuver designed to shortchange publishers.
“In PMC’s preferred world,” the defendants penned, “Google Search must be frozen in time, requiring users to speculatively visit websites like PMC’s to access their desired information—if it is found there at all.”
Especially because search results and AI summaries can’t exist without information from proper websites, there’s a lot to unpack in that sentence. Keeping the focus on the actual dismissal arguments, though, Google took aim at the reciprocal dealing allegation – or the claim of threatening to withhold search traffic in the absence of AI opt-ins.
“But what the Amended Complaint calls ‘reciprocal dealing’ is nothing more than a claim that Google is refusing to deal with PMC on PMC’s preferred terms,” the defendants indicated. “Google is not obligated to include PMC’s or any other publisher’s content in its search engine. Having chosen to do so, Google is free to set the terms on which it will engage with PMC and other publishers.”
Similarly, Penske Media’s “theory of coercion is likewise implausible,” according to the document. “Google obtains web content for its search index based on publishers’ own choices to make such content available,” the relevant text reads. “Publishers maintain discretion over which portions of their websites are available to be indexed on Google and can opt out of indexing entirely.”
Finally, on the tying front, the “supposed tie is nothing more than Google displaying AI Overviews on its search results page,” per the defendants.
“There is no tie. AI Overviews are, as the name implies, summaries of information responsive to a user’s query,” Google explained. “They are not a separate product from Google’s general search engine. And displaying an AI Overview does not deprive users of alternatives or require them to use it to access other results. Providing users with the choice to use an additional feature cannot be coercive tying.”
As for what comes next, Penske Media has until February 12th to provide its dismissal opposition; then, Google’s response will be due by March 5th.
