Federal Judge Denies Effort to Divide Google’s Advertising Operations

The Justice Department argued that Google could not be trusted to manage the online advertising exchange.

Alphabet’s Google has avoided a breakup of its advertising technology business, marking the third recent loss for U.S. antitrust authorities attempting to force a major tech company to split.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, declined on Wednesday to order Google to sell its ad exchange, AdX, where publishers pay a 20% fee for instantaneous auctions when users load websites.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) argued that Google could not be trusted to operate the exchange after Judge Brinkema ruled that the company had illegally suppressed competition.

The judge accepted behavioral remedies.

The reasoning behind today’s decision has not yet been made public.

Judge Brinkema filed her opinion under seal for 14 days, keeping the details of required changes to Google’s ad business unknown for now. She gave both parties 30 days to submit a joint proposed final judgment.

The case focused on Google’s ad‑technology stack — the suite of tools that website publishers use to sell ads and advertisers use to purchase them.

Brinkema previously ruled that Google willfully monopolized both the publisher ad‑server market and the ad‑exchange market, and unlawfully tied the two products together.

Google said it will appeal the underlying liability ruling.

The DOJ’s case portrayed Google as simultaneously controlling multiple facets of the digital advertising marketplace — acting as both the platform where publishers list ads and the exchange where transactions occur — while wielding substantial advertiser demand. Prosecutors sought the sale of Google’s ad auction site AdX and the open‑sourcing of its auction technology.

Google argued that the proposed remedies were an extreme government overreach that would harm publishers, advertisers and consumers, and claimed that splitting the business would be technically infeasible.

AdX represents a modest portion of Google’s overall operations. Its shares slipped slightly after the ruling but rose 0.6%.

The company welcomed the decision, stating, “We’re very pleased the court rejected the DOJ’s proposal to break apart tools that help small businesses reach new customers and grow,” said executive Lee‑Anne Mulholland.

The DOJ said in a post on X that it was “pleased that the court ordered substantial relief.”

“We are one step closer to restoring competition and bringing relief for the American people in online advertising markets. The Department is evaluating appropriate next steps,” the DOJ said.

Source link