Judge Orders Google Ad Tech Changes, Rejects Breakup
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered remedies to Google's digital advertising system but declined the Justice Department's push to force a sale of parts of the business.
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Google to retool the system powering its monopoly in digital advertising, sparing the company from a breakup sought by the U.S. government.
The initial two-page decision by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia marks the second time in a year that Google has avoided a Justice Department proposal to dismantle parts of its internet empire. The company's practices, which courts have described as anti-competitive, have helped enrich its parent, Alphabet Inc., now valued at $4.11 trillion.
Brinkema's full opinion, including specific remedies, will stay under seal for 14 days so the parties can review it and propose redactions. She said she agreed to most of the remedies proposed by both sides.
"We're very pleased the Court rejected the DOJ's proposal to break apart tools that help small businesses reach new customers and grow," said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google's vice president for regulatory affairs.
The case dates to a 2023 antitrust lawsuit that led to a monopoly judgment last year. The Justice Department had argued Google should be forced to sell parts of the ad tech system, warning that otherwise the company could "manipulate computer algorithms" in ways too difficult to detect. Google countered that breaking up the network — which handles an estimated 55 million ad requests per second — would harm publishers and consumers.
The ruling follows a similar reprieve Google received last September, when another federal judge declined to force a sale of its Chrome browser despite an earlier finding that its search engine was an illegal monopoly.
Critics of Big Tech condemned Wednesday's decision. "It takes an Olympic level of mental gymnastics to find that Google is operating an illegal monopoly and then decide to do nothing about it," said Sacha Haworth, executive director of The Tech Oversight Project.
Analysts expect investors to treat the ruling as a minor setback rather than a serious threat to Google's roughly $400 billion in annual ad revenue, especially as Alphabet's stock has surged following the earlier search case ruling.
This article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI), in accordance with our editorial policy.
