Google's Own Search Monopoly Judge: AI Overviews 'Seems Really Unfair' to Publishers
Amit Mehta, the same judge who found Google's search monopoly illegal, openly pressed back as Google argued at a Penske hearing that AI Overviews is just a "product improvement." Google's lawyers called the crawl-for-traffic arrangement with publishers a "vague historical course of dealing," while Mehta noted rivals pay for content and Google ingests the web free. He flagged that product improvements are not immune to antitrust scrutiny — a telling signal for every publisher eating lost clicks.