US District Judge Leonie Brinkema handed the Justice Department a mixed verdict on Wednesday. She confirmed her earlier finding that Google illegally monopolized the markets for publisher ad servers and ad exchanges, tying its DoubleClick for Publishers tool to its AdX exchange in a way that made it nearly impossible for customers to leave. But she rejected the DOJ's request to force Google to sell AdX.
Instead, Brinkema said she'll adopt most of the behavioral changes the parties proposed, with some modifications. The public won't see them for at least 14 days — the order is sealed while both sides review it for redactions. Reporting from Bloomberg suggests the remedies could include opening Google's real-time ad data to third-party tools and restricting self-preferencing in auctions.
Brinkema did side with Google on one point: the DOJ failed to prove the company illegally monopolized advertiser-side tools. Google VP Lee-Anne Mulholland called that the win that mattered, saying the court 'rejected the DOJ's proposal to break apart tools that help small businesses reach new customers and grow.' The DOJ's Antitrust Division said on X it was 'pleased that the court ordered substantial relief' and is 'evaluating appropriate next steps.' Associate AG Stanley Woodward Jr. framed the ruling as a tradeoff 'between immediate relief and remedies obtained through years of litigation.'
Some numbers for context: the DOJ and eight states alleged Google held an 87 percent share of the ad-sales tech market when they sued in 2023. AdX charges publishers a 20 percent fee to place ads in real time. The EU already fined Google $3.5 billion last September over the same ad tech products.
This closes the district court phase of the third major federal monopoly case against a tech giant in recent years. Google also lost — and largely survived — the DOJ's search case, where Judge Amit Mehta ordered data-sharing instead of a Chrome sale. Epic Games' Android case forced Google to allow third-party app stores and alternative payment options, which may end up reshaping more of its business than either DOJ case. Meanwhile the FTC's monopolization case against Meta collapsed outright, and the government's cases against Amazon and Apple haven't even gone to trial.
Here's the thing: years of litigation, an 87 percent market share, a formal ruling of illegal monopolization — and the remedy is a sealed memo of behavioral tweaks the public hasn't seen. That's not a breakup, it's a compliance checklist. The DOJ gets a press release; Google gets to keep the exchange, the fee structure, and the market position that got it sued in the first place.
The deeper cost here isn't to Google's balance sheet. It's the years and public resources spent chasing a structural remedy that never materialized, while the same enforcement apparatus shows little appetite to slow Google down in the market that actually matters now: AI. If antitrust can't move faster than the compute race, the next monopoly won't wait for a verdict.
