Google has been ordered to overhaul its online advertising operations worldwide after a U.S. court found that the company violated federal antitrust laws.
In a 106-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said the $4 trillion technology giant must change the rules governing online ad auctions to create “much-needed competition.”
Brinkema said the remedies were designed to “effectively pry open to competition” ad-tech markets damaged by Google’s unlawful conduct and prevent the company from returning to anticompetitive practices.
The decision follows Brinkema’s ruling last year that Google breached antitrust law in the open-web display advertising market, which covers the ads displayed in boxes along the tops and sides of websites.
Revenue from those ads helps support online publishers, including news organizations, many of which are already under pressure as artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes the digital advertising industry.
Google controls the platforms publishers use to sell advertising space, the tools advertisers use to purchase it and AdX, an exchange where the transactions take place almost instantaneously.
Historically, Google has collected more than 30 cents from every advertising dollar moving through the system, including a 20 percent fee charged to publishers using AdX.
Google violated U.S. antitrust laws in open-web display advertising, prompting a judge to impose remedies involving data sharing, transparency and oversight
In last year’s ruling, Brinkema found that Google violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act by “willfully engaging in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power.” She also found that the company unlawfully tied AdX to the tools publishers use to sell advertising.
Those practices “deprived rivals of the ability to compete” and significantly harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process and, ultimately, consumers who rely on the open web for information.
In the full opinion, unsealed Wednesday at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Brinkema detailed a series of “behavioral remedies” governing how Google must operate going forward.
Under the order, publishers using Google’s ad-server technology will not have to use AdX to sell their inventory, severing the unlawful connection between the company’s two products.
Google must also provide additional data, permanently end practices that publishers said locked them into its services and stop auction-bidding practices that gave the company preferential or discriminatory treatment.
Brinkema said allowing publishers to view real-time AdX bids through other ad servers would help restore “much-needed” competition to the market.
The ruling also creates a Monitor and Technical Committee to supervise Google for six years. That period could be extended if the company fails to comply with the requirements.
Google must additionally appoint an internal antitrust compliance monitor to ensure it follows the new rules.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema issued a 106-page opinion setting out requirements for Google’s future conduct
Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr said the court’s ruling was a “significant victory” for the Department of Justice
Brinkema said the oversight was warranted by the “gravity” of Google’s antitrust violations in the case, which was brought by the Department of Justice and others.
After the opinion was released, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr said the ruling in the Google ad-tech case was a “significant victory” in the department’s efforts to protect and restore competition.
Google said it disagreed with Brinkema’s original ruling that it violated antitrust laws, and will appeal
The DOJ had wanted Google to be forced to sell off AdX, arguing the Silicon Valley company could not be trusted to run it.
Two weeks ago, Brinkema revealed that she had stopped short of making Google divest AdX.
In her full opinion the judge said forcing a sale was ‘neither realistic nor needed.’
The DOJ’s ‘rationale for seeking divestiture boils down to a lack of trust that Google will comply with an order from this court and an unrealistic desire for certainty,’ she wrote.
She said the exchange transacts various forms of advertising, including app and instream video, and the DOJ’s ‘proposed divesture of AdX would have an effect on other Google products and services beyond the conduct plaintiff seeks to redress.’
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia where the case was heard
In relation to whether the measures in the opinion should apply globally, Google had argued the court ‘should not impose an injunction that would operate outside the nation’s borders,’ but Brinkema took the opposite view.
She wrote: ‘For Google, a worldwide application of the final judgment would entail product changes that are consistent across all regions, in line with its current operations.’
Last year, the European Commission fined Google €2.95 billion ($3.5 billion) and it is pursuing remedies over the company’s breaches of antitrust rules in the European Union.
Meanwhile, in December, U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel in New York granted class action status to thousands of publishers who claim Google abused its market power and overcharged them for for its advertising technology services between 2016 and 2024.
They are seeking damages of more than $1.7 billion. Google denies wrongdoing.
The closely-watched case in Virginia began in 2023, under the Biden administration, when the DOJ and the Attorneys General of more than a dozen states sued Google.
A trial before Brinkema the following year saw government lawyers detail how Google controlled both sides of the market for open-web display advertising.
They told the court how a senior Google executive had once likened the company’s position to Goldman Sachs owning the New York Stock Exchange.
Witnesses from media organizations including Our News Outlet, Gannett, which owns USA Today, and News Corp., which publishes The Wall Street Journal, told the court they had to use Google’s advertising technology, and that it was costing them revenue that could otherwise be used to boost journalism.
Sundar Pichai is the CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet
At the conclusion of that trial, Brinkema found that the Silicon Valley giant’s conduct had ‘substantially harmed’ publishers and consumers.
She found that the AdX exchange and the technology used by publishers to sell advertising space amounted to an illegal monopoly, and that Google unlawfully locked publishers into using AdX.
Last year, there were further court proceedings as Google and the DOJ argued what the remedies should be.
The case has been part of a wider effort by the DOJ to rein in Big Tech.
In 2024, Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google held an illegal monopoly in online search, but rejected the DOJ’s attempt to force a sale of its Chrome browser.
