Google will not have to break up its advertising operations, a federal judge has ruled, though it will have to alter its business practices.
Leonie M. Brinkema, U.S. District Judge of the Eastern District of Virginia, handed down her decision Wednesday. The ruling, which remains under seal, comes after Brinkema concluded last year that the company had “willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising.”
The judge went on to say the company acted to preserve its “monopoly power by imposing anticompetitive policies on its customers and eliminating desirable product features.”
Since the Obama administration, Google has faced numerous lawsuits challenging its dominance in advertising. The company has said derived about 70% of its $403 billion in 2025 total revenue from online ads. The ad tech case heard by Brinkema was filed when Joe Biden was president and then pursued by Donald Trump’s DOJ.
While the specific remedies laid out by Brinkema were not initially clear, the judge said Google would not be required to sell off its ad exchange, a step requested by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Big Tech has continually faced calls and legal attacks, urging it to break into smaller pieces. Google argued at trial that selling off parts of its ad portfolio would ultimately harm consumers. Brinkema also expressed skepticism about the idea of selling off the ad assets, noting that there would be no way to be sure who would buy and operate them.
Meta and Amazon have also come through lawsuits intact, avoiding a breakup scenario.
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