Google avoids ad-tech breakup as US court orders business changes

MUMBAI: Google’s ad-tech empire has dodged the axe, but it has not escaped the rulebook. A US federal court has rejected the Department of Justice’s push to break up parts of Google’s advertising technology business, instead ordering the company to change how it operates and give rival ad-tech providers greater access to parts of the ecosystem.

US District Judge Leonie M Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia rejected the DOJ’s proposed divestiture on Wednesday, opting for behavioural remedies aimed at curbing practices linked to Google’s dominance in digital advertising.

The detailed remedies have not yet been made public. Brinkema’s full written ruling will remain under seal for 14 days while the parties review it and propose any necessary redactions. The precise restrictions on Google’s operations will therefore become clearer once the order is unsealed.

The decision is nevertheless a significant win for Google on the biggest question hanging over the case: whether it would have to sell parts of its ad-tech operation. The business sits at the heart of Alphabet’s advertising machine, with the parent company valued at $4.11 trillion and Google generating nearly $400 billion in annual advertising sales.

Google welcomed the decision. Lee-Anne Mulholland, its vice president for regulatory affairs, said the company was “very pleased” that the court had rejected the DOJ’s proposal to break apart tools used by small businesses to reach customers and grow.

But the courtroom victory comes with a sizeable asterisk. The latest ruling does not overturn Brinkema’s April 2025 finding that Google violated US antitrust law in parts of the open-web ad-tech market.

That earlier ruling found Google had unlawfully acquired and maintained monopoly power in the markets for publisher ad servers and ad exchanges. The court also found that Google had unlawfully tied its publisher ad server, DFP, to its AdX ad exchange.

The case concerns the machinery behind online advertising rather than the ads consumers see. Publisher ad servers help websites manage and sell advertising space, while ad exchanges function as marketplaces connecting buyers and sellers of digital advertising.

Brinkema did not, however, accept the government’s separate claim that Google had monopolised the market for advertiser ad networks.

Following the April 2025 liability ruling, the DOJ pushed for stronger structural remedies, including the sale of parts of Google’s ad-tech business. The latest decision leaves those operations intact, while behavioural measures accepted by the court are expected to open aspects of Google’s ad-tech system to competitors.

The ruling also lands amid a much bigger US antitrust battle with Google. The DOJ filed a separate lawsuit in 2020 challenging the company’s dominance in search, while the ad-tech case was filed in 2023. In August 2024, another federal court found Google had illegally monopolised the search market, including search advertising.

The government later sought structural remedies in that case, including the divestiture of Google’s Chrome browser and potentially other parts of its ecosystem. In September 2025, US District Judge Amit Mehta rejected the proposed Chrome and Android divestitures but ordered Google to end exclusive default-placement agreements and share certain search data with competitors. Google is appealing those remedies.

For now, then, Google’s ad-tech business remains under the same roof but with new rules potentially changing how it can operate. The next chapter will depend on the details of Brinkema’s remedy order once the court lifts the seal.