A U.S. court has issued remedies in the antitrust case against Google's ad technology. The judge did not adopt the U.S. Department of Justice's proposal to break up the business but required Google to modify how it operates its advertising business to create more room for competitors.
No request to sell the advertising business
This ruling was issued by Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. This week, she stated that Google may retain its existing advertising business rather than being forced to sell related assets. However, the court requires Google to modify certain business practices to improve market competition.
The New York Times noted that the ruling does not yet specify exactly how Google must make changes. The full written ruling will be made public after being sealed for 14 days to allow relevant parties to complete necessary revisions.
Monopolistic behavior was identified last year.
This ruling addresses "how to remedy," not whether the conduct was illegal. Back in April 2025, the court already determined that Google engaged in illegal conduct in maintaining its position in the advertising technology business. The content released this week primarily decides on the appropriate remedial measures.
In recent years, Google has faced increasing antitrust pressure in the United States. In a separate case concerning its search business, a court ruled in 2024 that Google’s search and search advertising operations constitute an illegal monopoly, finding that it leveraged its market dominance to control the search and search advertising markets.
The handling path for search cases is similar to that of advertising cases.
In the search case, the U.S. Department of Justice proposed several divestiture plans, including requiring Google to divest Chrome and the Android operating system. However, Judge Amit Mehta, who presided over the case, rejected these divestiture demands in September 2025, allowing Google to retain Chrome and Android.
However, Mehta also required Google to stop certain exclusive pre-installation default agreements and to share part of its search data with competitors. Google is currently appealing these remedies.
Based on the current outcome, the advertising technology case follows a similar approach: the court did not directly break up Google’s core business but required it to modify its business practices to reduce its exclusive advantages.
Google said the ruling is favorable.
Google viewed this outcome as a victory. Lee-Anne Mulholland, Vice President of Corporate Regulatory Affairs, told TechCrunch that the court rejected the Department of Justice’s proposal to divest tools that Google described as essential products helping small and medium-sized businesses reach new customers and grow.
The U.S. government previously alleged that Google maintained a dominant position in mobile search by entering into exclusive agreements with device manufacturers to secure default search placement on a large number of devices. The government also stated that Google entered into revenue-sharing agreements with mobile carriers, enabling them to share advertising revenue while maintaining Google as the default search provider, further solidifying Google’s dominant position in the mobile search market.