Edtech company Chegg has filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that the tech giant’s AI-generated summaries of search results have negatively impacted Chegg’s website traffic and revenue.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, accuses Google of engaging in unfair competition, particularly through practices like reciprocal dealing, maintaining a monopoly, and unjust enrichment. Chegg argues that Google forces companies to provide their content to be featured in Google Search, using its monopoly in search to profit from third-party intellectual property.
Chegg is seeking compensatory damages and other remedies, as well as an injunction to stop Google’s alleged “unfair and unlawful” actions.
This legal action is part of a broader complaint from publishers who have raised concerns about Google’s AI-driven summaries in search results. Several news organizations have reported a decline in traffic due to Google’s use of AI to generate answers to search queries by pulling information from various sources across the web.
