Google’s Adtech Monopoly Remains Largely Untouched After Judge’s Light‑Touch Ruling

When the court unsealed Judge Leonie Brinkema’s 106‑page decision this week, the tech‑watchdog crowd collectively raised an eyebrow – and then a fist. The ruling keeps Google’s digital‑advertising stronghold more or less as it is, offering only a handful of modest concessions.

Under the order, Google must start sharing more data about its real‑time ad auctions with publishers and appoint an independent antitrust monitor to keep an eye on its practices. The twist? Those obligations last just six years, far short of the 15‑year term the Justice Department was lobbying for.

What’s more, Google retains full control of its coveted “AdX” marketplace, where it continues to skim a 20 percent fee from every ad sale. That, coupled with the short‑term monitoring, feels to many like a “half‑hearted” fix.

“After finding Google guilty of illegal conduct, this decision is an embarrassing capitulation that essentially lets them determine their own punishment in exchange for a promise not to repeat the behavior,” said Barry Lynn, director of the Open Markets Institute. He added that the decision “fails the American people and American democracy.”

Judge Brinkema’s approach was a surprise to many. Back in April 2025 she had already ruled that Google’s conduct “substantially harmed” publishers and amounted to an illegal monopoly, even noting that the company had “destroyed” key evidence by deleting employee chat logs.

Yet in her latest opinion she asserted that her remedies would be “sufficient to effectively pry open to competition the ad‑tech markets that were injured by Google’s unlawful conduct, and prevent Google from reverting to anticompetitive conduct in these markets.” She also brushed aside the DOJ’s breakup request as “neither realistic nor needed.”

This isn’t the first time Google has dodged a full divestiture. Last September, Judge Amit Mehta declined the Justice Department’s bid to force a sale of Chrome, even after previously finding the search giant monopolistic.

Industry voices are hardly quiet. Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next, wrote on X that “there is nothing in either set of Google antitrust remedies that materially changes things for the news media,” adding that Google can still “leverage its unbridled data harvesting across its services and our lives.”

Meanwhile, the Justice Department’s associate attorney general, Stanley Woodward, called the ruling “a significant victory for this Department’s efforts to protect and restore competition,” but promised to keep reviewing the opinion for next steps.

Google’s own regulator, Lee‑Anne Mulholland, said the company was “very pleased the court rejected the DOJ’s proposal to break apart tools that help small businesses reach new customers and grow.”

For now, the ad‑tech battlefield remains largely unchanged, and the debate over how—or whether—to curb Google’s power is far from settled.