Google was accused of having an illegal advertising monopoly. On Wednesday, it still walked away with the business intact.
US District Judge Leonie Brinkema rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to force Google to sell AdX, the exchange at the heart of its advertising system. Alphabet shares rose modestly after the breakup threat disappeared.
Instead, Brinkema ordered changes to how Google operates its ad tools, including giving rivals greater access to bidding data.
A Narrow Escape for Google?
The case began in 2023, when the Justice Department and several states accused Google of dominating the technology publishers use to sell online ads.
In April 2025, Brinkema agreed. She found Google had illegally tied publishers to AdX, where it collects a 20% fee.
“substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web,” Reuters reported, citing Brinkema.
Google argued that selling AdX would be technically difficult and disruptive for customers. The judge rejected the breakup.
The ruling extends a striking pattern. Exactly one year earlier, another judge allowed Google to keep Chrome. Meta then kept Instagram and WhatsApp in November. US regulators have now lost three straight attempts to break up Big Tech.
Ad Manager itself is small beside Alphabet’s $4.08 trillion valuation. It generated 4.1% of Google’s revenue and 1.5% of operating profit in 2020.
The pressure has hardly disappeared. Google still faces regulatory problems in Europe, while its AI position remains less settled and Alphabet’s huge AI spending is becoming a bigger question for investors.
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