Google Defeats US Bid to Force Ad Tech Sale (yahoo.com) 20
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Alphabet's Google escaped a breakup of its advertising technology business on Wednesday, when a judge in Virginia rejected U.S. antitrust enforcers' bid to force a sale of Google's online advertising exchange. While the ad exchange is a small part of Google's business, the ruling is the second powerful symbolic victory against the U.S. Department of Justice in its efforts to force Google to sell assets to address illegal monopolies. U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, declined to make Google sell AdX, where publishers pay Google a 20% fee to sell ads in auctions that happen instantly when users load websites. She accepted most of the parties' proposed behavioral remedies.
The DOJ and a broad coalition of states sued Google in 2023 over its dominance in markets for advertising technology used by online publishers and websites. In April 2025, Brinkema ruled that Google holds illegal monopolies on servers that host publisher ads and ad exchanges which sit between buyers and sellers. Google unlawfully locked publishers on its ad server into using its AdX, the judge found. The tech giant's anticompetitive conduct "substantially harmed Google's publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web," Brinkema said at the time.
At a trial last year on remedies in the case, the DOJ argued that Google cannot be trusted to run AdX, given its past behavior. Google argued that a forced sale would be technically difficult and result in a long and painful transition that would hurt customers. During the remedies trial, Google's lawyers warned that forcing it to sell parts of its ad-tech business would cause disruption and damage. [...] The ruling is the third time in a row that a judge has rejected a bid by U.S. antitrust enforcers to break up Big Tech in a crackdown that started during President Donald Trump's first term. In another major Google antitrust case, a judge similarly rejected the DOJ's push to force Google to sell Chrome. It is likely to fuel questions about whether courts are up to the task of checking the industry's unprecedented power over the U.S. economy.
The DOJ and a broad coalition of states sued Google in 2023 over its dominance in markets for advertising technology used by online publishers and websites. In April 2025, Brinkema ruled that Google holds illegal monopolies on servers that host publisher ads and ad exchanges which sit between buyers and sellers. Google unlawfully locked publishers on its ad server into using its AdX, the judge found. The tech giant's anticompetitive conduct "substantially harmed Google's publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web," Brinkema said at the time.
At a trial last year on remedies in the case, the DOJ argued that Google cannot be trusted to run AdX, given its past behavior. Google argued that a forced sale would be technically difficult and result in a long and painful transition that would hurt customers. During the remedies trial, Google's lawyers warned that forcing it to sell parts of its ad-tech business would cause disruption and damage. [...] The ruling is the third time in a row that a judge has rejected a bid by U.S. antitrust enforcers to break up Big Tech in a crackdown that started during President Donald Trump's first term. In another major Google antitrust case, a judge similarly rejected the DOJ's push to force Google to sell Chrome. It is likely to fuel questions about whether courts are up to the task of checking the industry's unprecedented power over the U.S. economy.
We Need to Strengthen Our Anti-Trust Laws (Score:4, Insightful)
It's insane that the judge ruled this way, but it's not his fault: the law is ancient and terrible.
There's a good chance we're going to have a very different Congress next year: lets pressure them to strengthen anti-trust law.
Re: (Score:3)
These days I always google the judge just to see who appointed them. She was appointed by Bill Clinton in 1993. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: We Need to Strengthen Our Anti-Trust Laws (Score:2)
Bill "Fox and Sinclair" Clinton
Re:We Need to Strengthen Our Anti-Trust Laws (Score:4, Funny)
So, she's ancient and terrible too.
Re: (Score:2)
The fix is still the same as it was from day one - ban user tracking! This levels the playing field for all forms of advertising thereby killing the stranglehold of online in general.
fewer ads does not hurt consumers (Score:2)
> Google argued that a forced sale would be technically difficult and result in a long and painful transition that would hurt customers
How does fewer ads hurt consumers? I'd argue that a broken AdX is better for consumers.
Re: (Score:3)
The customers are the ad bidders. You know, the ones paying google for your attention.
My guess is that google hasn't seen AdX reach its full, glorious potential yet and they think that just around the corner they'll make some kind of breakthrough that will make AdX worth 100x its current value.
Re: (Score:3)
allocating scarce resources fairly until such time that humanity has technologically advanced to eliminate scarcity
Scarcity is what keeps humanity governable. If you have everything you need, who can then tell you what to do? Try telling a homeless bum to stop doing something. Give him a house, two car garage and chicken in the pot and he's at your beck and call.
Re: An unwise decision (Score:2)
Sounds like you have that backwards. The bum is ungovernable due to scarcity. It's prosperity that makes people controllable, by giving them something to lose.
Breaking Googles power (Score:1)
Break them into three or four companies:
- Ads
- Search
- Browser
- (Remaining Products)
In particular with Ads, Search, and Browser competing (e.g. search wanting much pay for ads and ads wanting to pay little per click) the market will get much better than with the current concentration in one company.
Re: (Score:2)
How will breaking search and the browser off of ads help with giving the customer a better browsing experience? And by customer, I mean advertisers. They need the market-oriented search and browser tracking hooks to capture more consumers. And they need them all to work together seamlessly.
Re: (Score:2)
- Search
I think google divested from that business, over the past 5 years or so, to such an extent that I wish Altavista was still around.
Ummm (Score:3)
Let's reel this in (Score:2)
Before Big tech takes over the US Gov
Re: (Score:2)
The fix is still the same as it was from day one - ban user tracking! This levels the playing field for all forms of advertising thereby killing the stranglehold of online in general.
"illegal monopolies"? (Score:2)
Monopolies aren't illegal. Monopolising is illegal, that's the actual word used in the law (3 times in quick succession, you can't miss it), it's a verb, it's an act of doing something. A state of being isn't illegal and in fact you don't need to have a monopoly or even a duopoly or oligopoly in order to fall afoul of antitrust laws.
Part of the problem is that people don't know how the law works, so they look to the wrong solutions, and the media isn't helping. No Google isn't holding an illegal monopoly an