Google is an ad tech monopolist: U.S. judge rules and industry responds

A U.S. federal court ruled today that Google is illegally operating a monopoly in online advertising, a decision that has the power to reshape the world of ad tech — and the open internet — and paves the way for the court to potentially order a breakup of Alphabet Inc.’s ad tech products.

In its ruling, the court found Google had unlawfully monopolized two markets within the open-web display advertising technology ecosystem, in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. The court also found that Google violated Section 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act by tying its publisher ad server (DFP) and ad exchange (AdX) together to retain dominance. The plaintiffs failed to prove that Google monopolized a third market — the advertiser ad network for open-web display advertising.

“For over a decade, Google has tied its publisher ad server and ad exchange together through contractual policies and technological integration, which enabled the company to establish and protect its monopoly power in these two markets,” wrote Judge Leonie Brinkema, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, in the 115-page decision.

Brinkema further stated that Google “entrenched” its monopoly by “imposing anticompetitive policies on its customers and eliminating desirable product features” effectively causing harm to “Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web.”

The ruling is a long time in the making. The Department of Justice filed its first complaint on Jan. 24, 2023, and eight states joined (a number that has since grown to 17). The trial concluded in November 2024, and at the time, the judge indicated the decision could come out before the end of the year. The delay, the ruling states, was due to “extensive post-trial filings.”

Now that the court has ruled that Google is liable, it will determine what the ruling calls “appropriate remedies.” In its complaint, the Justice Department requested the divestiture of Google Ad Manager, including DFP and AdX, to remedy Google’s illegal acts.

If Google is forced to make a change, it will be a victory for open internet companies and allies that believe Google holds too much power. The ruling marks the second time in a year that Google was found to act illegally to maintain dominance. In August, Judge Amit Mehta ruled that the tech giant had illegally maintained its monopoly in search. In that case, the DOJ is pursuing remedies that include the forced sale of Google’s Chrome browser.

The legal pressure is compounding internationally as well. Just last month, European regulators issued preliminary findings that Google Search violated the Digital Markets Act (DMA), allegedly giving itself “prominent treatment” in search results.

Across the internet on Thursday, the industry didn’t hold back on reactions to the ruling.

“We welcome the verdict in this case,” wrote The Trade Desk CEO and Founder Jeff Green in a statement on LinkedIn.

“The Trade Desk has long believed that Google essentially acts as the defendant, the plaintiff, the judge, the jury, the court reporter and the bailiff in many ad transactions and that this jeopardizes market fairness and trust. We look forward to understanding remedies that may remove some of the roles that Google currently plays, in a way [that] helps improve competition, fairness and transparency in the ad market for all market participants.”

“The next chapter might be the most interesting” Green added.

Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next, calls the decision a “decade in the making.”

“Google has exhibited a clear pattern of anticompetitive behavior, using its market power to self-preference its own products at the expense of competition and innovation. This ruling underscore[s] the global harm caused by Google’s practices, which have derived premium publishers worldwide of critical revenue, undermining their ability to sustain high-quality journalism and entertainment. Today’s decision is a significant step toward restoring competition and accountability in the digital advertising ecosystem.”

Speaking to The Current, Tom Blakely, an attorney with experience at an international law firm and the U.S. Justice Department who attended and documented the case, called it “interesting” that the court sided with Google on open on the issue of whether there exists a relevant market for open-web display advertiser ad networks.

“Google strenuously argued on this point, and given the reality that in today’s world there are so many different places to put ad dollars, it’s not impossible in a case that for all intents and purposes is a massive Google loss, to embrace one of its contentions,” he says.

But likely, Blakely says, this case will go on for a while before any remedy is ultimately imposed. The Eastern District of Virginia is known as the “rocket docket” for how quickly it resolves cases, but on appeal, cases are sent to the 4th Circuit and potentially the Supreme Court, he says. It is also unique, if not unprecedented, he says, for the government to simultaneously be in the remedies phases of breaking up the same company in two concurrent cases targeting different business lines of the same corporation, in two different jurisdictions.

“The Trump administration has signaled it has no intention to settle the Big Tech antitrust cases on the cheap, like the Bush administration did with U.S. v. Microsoft in the early 2000s, the last time we had big antitrust cases like this,” Blakely says. “So between appeals and the remedies phases, this will be going on in all likelihood for several more years, but not forever.”

Indeed, Lee-Anne Mulholland, vice president of Regulatory Affairs at Google, already said Google will appeal the ruling, according to Reuters.

“We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half,” she said, adding that the company disagrees with the decision on its publisher tools. “Publishers have many options, and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective.”

While the outcome of the ruling could still take potentially years to unravel, this decision impacts the future of Google and possibly other tech behemoths.

As Brinkema wrote in the ruling: “Digital advertising has been the lifeblood of the Internet, funding much of its development while providing free access to an extraordinary quantity of content and services.”

The Current is owned and operated by The Trade Desk Inc.