Analysis
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Google to retool the technology powering its digital advertising business but stopped short of the breakup the Justice Department had sought, Axios reported. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, ruling in the Eastern District of Virginia, said Google must change specific business practices in its ad-tech stack rather than divest any part of it -- a major, if partial, win for a company a federal court had already found guilty of running an illegal monopoly.
The case dates to January 2023, when the DOJ and 17 states sued Google over its dominance of the technology that connects online publishers and advertisers -- the exchanges and ad servers that sit between a website's ad inventory and the marketers bidding on it. Brinkema ruled in April 2025 that Google had illegally tied together its publisher ad server (DFP) and ad exchange (AdX) to maintain monopoly power in open-web display advertising, setting up a separate remedies trial to decide the fix.
What the Judge Rejected -- and What She Didn't
Brinkema's short public order explicitly rejected the DOJ's three most aggressive proposed remedies: a forced divestiture of AdX, open-sourcing the final auction logic inside DFP, and a contingent spinoff of what DOJ called the "DFP Remainder." At the same time, she said she was accepting "most" of the government's proposed behavioral remedies -- the specifics remain under seal for 14 days while the parties negotiate redactions, and both sides now have 30 days to submit a jointly proposed final judgment covering auction transparency, data-sharing, and self-preferencing rules.
This is the second time in roughly a year that Google has been found to run an illegal monopoly and then avoided a structural breakup as the remedy -- the first came in its search-antitrust case, where a different judge similarly ordered behavioral fixes (data-sharing with rivals, an end to exclusive default-search deals) rather than a Chrome or Android spinoff. Trade group CCIA, which counts Google as a member, welcomed the outcome, while ad-tech rivals that pushed for a breakup will now have to make their case for real competitive relief inside whatever behavioral framework the two sides draft over the next month. Pulse has tracked Google's mounting antitrust exposure globally, including its EU Android antitrust loss earlier this year, which piles onto a pattern of enforcement wins against Google in 2026 even as none of them, in the US or EU, has yet forced a real structural breakup.
For ad-tech and martech founders, the ruling is a mixed signal: it confirms a federal court believes Google's conduct was illegal and that meaningful changes are coming to how AdX and DFP interoperate with rivals, which could open real distribution for smaller exchanges -- but it also confirms US courts remain reluctant to force Big Tech structural breakups even after a monopoly finding. Any startup whose go-to-market plan depended on Google being forced to sell off ad-tech assets needs a new plan.
The catch is that the actual remedies are still unknown. Brinkema's public memo describes categories of relief, not mechanics, and the real test is the joint final judgment due in 30 days -- and then years of likely appeals, since Google has signaled it will challenge even the accepted behavioral remedies. Structural separation, which antitrust economists generally consider the more durable fix because it doesn't require ongoing enforcement, is now off the table entirely for this case.
DOJ's parallel case seeking to force Google to sell Chrome is still pending separately in the search-antitrust matter -- if that one also lands on behavioral remedies rather than a forced sale, 2026 will be remembered as the year US antitrust enforcement proved it could win monopoly findings against Big Tech but not break any of it up.
