A decision in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia will likely have massive ramifications for Google‘s ad business — and for the tech industry as a whole. Judge Leonie Brinkema published a 115-page ruling in which she decreed that Google operates a monopoly in certain sectors of the digital ad industry.
Brinkema stated that Google “substantially harmed [its] publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web” by “wilfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power” in a manner that stripped other businesses “of the ability to compete.” The Department of Justice‘s complaint accused Google of monopolistic practices related to ad server, ad exchange, and ad network technologies, but Brinkema’s ruling argues that Google’s monopoly only extends to the server and exchange markets.
Google has vehemently denied the accusations against it since the DoJ lawsuit began in 2023. Top execs like YouTube CEO Neal Mohan — who joined Google after its 2007 acquisition of ad tech company DoubleClick — made the case that Google owes its advertising dominance to the overall growth of the industry.
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After Judge Brinkema’s ruling came down, Google vowed to continue fighting and appeal the decision. “Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable, and effective,” reads a statement from the company.
Brinkema decreed that Google and the DoJ have seven days to permit a schedule proposal for the arguments that will determine whether Google is to break up its ad business. The Information predicted that the DoJ would push for Google to sell off its ad server and exchange divisions, which would give it much less control over the placement of digital ads on other websites. In that scenario, Google would be able to keep its in-house ad business intact, retaining control of the majority of the infrastructure that accounted for $264 billion of ad revenue in 2024.
The larger ramifications of the decision could affect the tech industry as a whole. Breaking up big tech firms is a hot trend at the DoJ these days. The federal government is still trying to get ByteDance to divest TikTok, and Mark Zuckerberg recently testified in an antitrust case that could uncouple Meta’s business interests.
Google has been adamant that its practices are not monopolistic, but it has struggled to convince regulators about the validity of its opinion. In addition to the ad tech lawsuit, another federal case could result in the breakup of Google’s vaunted search business.
