A federal judge just ruled Google can keep its advertising monopoly intact, rejecting the Justice Department's demand to break it up — another courtroom victory for Big Tech and another loss for independent platforms and publishers struggling to survive in a market one company rigged.
Why it matters: Judge Leonie Brinkema already found last April that Google "willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power" in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets. The company tied its ad server and exchange together through contractual policies and technological integration, used "First Look" and "Last Look" features to outbid rivals, and "eliminating desirable product features" to entrench its dominance. Google pulls roughly 70% of its $403 billion in 2025 revenue from online ads, according to Deadline. That's the pot of gold at the end of this rigged game. And the referee just let the house keep its winnings.
The DOJ wanted Google to sell off its AdX exchange business and open-source the technology behind its DoubleClick for Publishers platform. Brinkema said no to both. She accepted "most of the parties' proposed behavioral remedies, as modified by this Court," per UPI — but the full ruling remains under seal for 14 days, so nobody knows what those remedies actually are. SiliconANGLE reported that Google had already replaced First Look and Last Look with a system called Unified Pricing Rules years ago, meaning the "behavioral changes" may amount to codifying concessions Google already made.
Google's vice president for regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, framed it as a win for the little guy: "We're very pleased the Court rejected the DOJ's proposal to break apart tools that help small businesses reach new customers and grow." The DOJ, meanwhile, claimed it was "pleased that the court ordered substantial relief." Both sides claiming victory is usually a sign the public lost.
This fits a clear pattern. In September 2025, Judge Amit Mehta rejected the DOJ's request that Google divest Chrome and Android in the search monopoly case, ordering behavioral fixes instead. Meta and Amazon have also emerged from antitrust lawsuits unbroken. Deadline noted that lawsuits challenging Google's ad dominance date back to the Obama administration, were filed under Biden, and pursued under Trump — a bipartisan parade of failure. When both parties agree Big Tech is a problem but neither can deliver structural relief, the public gets sold out.
Brinkema expressed skepticism about forcing a sale, noting there would be no way to be sure who would buy and operate the assets, according to Deadline. Fair concern — but the practical effect is that a company found to have illegally maintained a monopoly keeps the monopoly. The tools independent platforms like Gab need to compete — fair access to ad markets — remain under the control of the company that was caught rigging those markets in the first place.
The ruling lands in two weeks. Then we'll see whether "behavioral remedies" mean anything real, or whether Google simply agrees to stop doing things it already stopped doing while keeping the monopoly it built by doing them.
