GOOGLE ANOTHER MONOPOLY THAT NEEDS TO BE BROKEN UP….BUt EVIL WINS
BY SRH
Google, another monopoly that needs to be broken up.
In the antitrust case against Google, the Justice Department sought the most punitive remedy—the dismantling of the company’s advertising technology business. However, a federal judge rejected this request and now Google is not required to do so.
The Eastern District of Virginia’s U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema declined to force Google to sell its online advertising marketplace AdX in an order issued on Wednesday.
Whenever a user visits a publisher’s website, AdX enables publishers to instantly auction off ad space. On such deals, Google usually tacks on a 20% fee.
But Brinkema gave her stamp of approval to “most of the parties’ behavioral remedies”—a move that will force Google to alter how it does business.
Those remedies’ specifics have not been made public just yet. In order to allow Google and the government the necessary time to determine which portions of Brinkema’s opinion should remain redacted, the entire document has been temporarily sealed.
In approximately two weeks, the judge will likely unseal the complete ruling.
Google’s platform for assisting website publishers with ad management and sales, Double Click for Publishers (DFP), will not be required to open-source critical technologies as a result of Wednesday’s order.
The Department of Justice had considered mandating that Google release portions of DFP’s auction code as open source. If the competition didn’t step up their game, it was also looking into selling off the rest of the company.
Eight states and the Department of Justice’s antitrust division sued Google in 2023, claiming the tech company had unlawfully monopolized the market for online advertising.
According to Brinkema’s ruling in April 2025, Google’s monopolies in the publisher ad servers and ad exchanges were illegal.
It became clear to her that Google had intertwined DFP and AdX in a manner that prevented publishers from using competing services. Thanks to that deal, Google was able to hold on to more than 90% of the publisher ad-server market.
“Google further entrenched its monopoly power by imposing anti-competitive policies on its customers and eliminating desirable product features,” wrote Brinkema.
The Department of Justice requested that Brinkema order Google to sell AdX during last September’s two-week remedies trial, citing the company’s history of anticompetitive behavior as evidence that it could not be relied upon to run the exchange fairly.
In its defense, Google said that compelled sales of AdX would be both technically challenging and disruptive to consumers. Separating the highly integrated systems would necessitate a complex and time-consuming transition, according to the company.
Elements of Wednesday’s ruling were well-received by both sides.
“We’re very pleased that the Court rejected the DOJ’s proposal to break apart tools that help small businesses reach new customers and grow,” stated Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s VP of regulatory affairs, in a statement read by The Epoch Times.
While this was going on, the DOJ celebrated the court’s restrictions as a win.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice informed The Epoch Times, “The Antitrust Division is pleased that the court ordered substantial relief in the Google Ad Tech case.”.
“We are one step closer to restoring competition and bringing relief for the American people in online advertising markets.”
With Wednesday’s decision, Google has now escaped a court-ordered breakup in two high-profile federal antitrust cases in the last year and a half.
Google was found to have unlawfully maintained a monopoly in general search services in 2024 by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta of the District of Columbia in a separate case involving the company’s online search business.
Mehta was subsequently requested by the DOJ to do a number of things, including compel Google to sell its Chrome browser.
In 2025, the judge denied the motion. On the contrary, he demanded that Google share specific search data with rivals and limited the company’s contract flexibility.
Stay tuned for updates….
