Alphabet's Google has escaped a breakup of its advertising technology business after a judge in Virginia rejected the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) attempt to force the sale of its online advertising exchange. The ruling represents a significant victory for Google against federal antitrust enforcers.
Judge Leonie Brinkema declined to order Google to sell AdX, an exchange where publishers pay Google a fee to auction ad space in real-time as users load websites. Brinkema accepted most of the parties’ proposed behavioral remedies instead. The ad exchange is a relatively small part of Google's overall business, but the ruling is the second major defeat for the DOJ in its efforts to compel Google to divest assets to resolve allegations of illegal monopolies.
The DOJ, alongside a coalition of states, filed a lawsuit against Google in 2023, citing the company's dominance in the ad tech markets used by online publishers and websites. In April 2025, Brinkema had previously ruled that Google held illegal monopolies over servers hosting publisher ads and the ad exchanges connecting buyers and sellers. She found that Google had unlawfully required publishers to use its AdX when using its ad server, stating that the tech giant's conduct had "substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web."
During a trial last year focused on remedies, the DOJ argued that Google's past behavior made it untrustworthy to continue operating AdX. Google countered that a forced sale would be technically challenging, lead to a protracted and disruptive transition, and negatively impact customers. The company also pointed to its previous offer to sell AdX to resolve an EU antitrust investigation, a move reported in 2024.
According to research and court documents analyzed by Wedbush, Ad Manager accounted for 4.1% of Google’s total revenue and 1.5% of its operating profit in 2020. More recent financial figures were redacted in court filings.
This decision is the third instance where a judge has thwarted an attempt by U.S. antitrust authorities to break up a major tech company as part of a broader crackdown that began during the previous presidential administration. These rulings raise questions about the judiciary's capacity to curb the extensive power of the tech industry over the U.S. economy.
Previously, a federal judge in Washington rejected the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) effort to force Meta Platforms to sell Instagram and WhatsApp, finding the agency had not proven Meta held a monopoly in the social media market, which had evolved significantly since the lawsuit's inception in 2020. Similarly, another Washington judge, who had previously determined Google possessed an illegal monopoly in online search, dismissed the DOJ's request for Google to sell its Chrome browser, citing the emergence of competition from generative AI companies like OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Antitrust cases brought by the government against Amazon and Apple, concerning vast smartphone and online retail markets, are not expected to go to trial before 2027.