Google avoids ad-tech breakup but must change how the business operates

What the court decided

Google will not be forced to sell its advertising technology business. According to TechCrunch, federal judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia ruled on Wednesday that the company may keep the business but must instead adjust its practices in ways that give competitors a fairer shot. The decision addresses the remedy phase of the antitrust case the Department of Justice filed in 2023 targeting Google's grip on ad technology.

Two details complicate any immediate read of the order. Brinkema's full written ruling will remain under seal for 14 days so the parties can prepare redactions, and, as The New York Times observed according to TechCrunch, the decision does not spell out exactly how Google is expected to comply. Brinkema had already found in April 2025 that Google acted illegally in maintaining its ad-tech position; this week's ruling was solely about what happens next.

A second antitrust ruling with the same shape

The ad-tech case is one of two major DOJ antitrust suits against Google. The first, filed in 2020 over search, ended in 2024 with a court finding that Google's search business, including its highly lucrative search-advertising operation, was an illegal monopoly, concluding the company had leveraged monopoly power to dominate search and search ads.

The remedies in that case followed a pattern that repeated this week. Justice Department officials proposed splitting up the search business, including divesting the Chrome browser and the Android operating system. In September 2025, judge Amit Mehta rejected those divestiture requests: Google could keep Chrome and Android but was ordered to end exclusive default-placement deals and share certain search data with competitors. Google is currently appealing those remedies.

Brinkema's ad-tech ruling lands in much the same place. Rather than a structural breakup, the company faces conduct requirements that are, for now, described only in general terms.

What Google is saying

Google framed the outcome as a win. Lee-Anne Mulholland, the company's vice president for regulatory affairs, told TechCrunch that Google was pleased the court rejected the DOJ's proposal to break apart tools that help small businesses reach new customers and grow.

The conduct at the center of the case

The online advertising ecosystem is notoriously opaque, and the government's arguments, as TechCrunch recounts, focused heavily on how Google secured its position in the first place. The company struck exclusive agreements with device manufacturers that made its search engine the default across large parts of the mobile market. It also entered revenue-sharing deals with carriers, which received a cut of ad revenue in exchange for keeping Google as the default. Prosecutors argued that this default status reinforced the dominance of Google's advertising business alongside its search engine.

Why it matters

The ruling leaves one of the internet's core economic engines intact. Google's ad-tech stack sits between publishers, advertisers and exchanges across much of the open web, and a forced divestiture would have reshaped the online advertising market and the economics of the publishers who depend on it.

But behavioral remedies carry their own difficulties. They are generally harder to police than divestitures, and with the ruling reportedly short on specifics, and the full text sealed for two weeks, it is unclear who will monitor compliance and by what standard. Google's pending appeal in the search case suggests this remedy could also face a long road before taking full effect. For advertisers, publishers and Google's rivals, the practical consequences of a landmark antitrust liability finding may stay abstract for some time.