Disappointment Following Federal Ruling in Google Antitrust Case
Lisa Macpherson serves as the policy director at Public Knowledge.
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Virginia issued an order outlining remedies in the antitrust case against Google’s advertising technology. The reaction is one of dismay—an emotion you should also feel.
This sentiment is relevant even if you don’t consider yourself a policy enthusiast. Back in the autumn of 2024, I penned a piece for Tech Policy Press detailing the significance of the Google ad-tech case, notwithstanding its legal labyrinth.
Drawing from my long-standing engagement with the evolution of digital advertising since the 1990s, I posited that “Google’s overwhelming dominance in the advertising technology sector has adversely affected advertisers and publishers… but the repercussions extend to consumers as well—compromising privacy, exacerbating disinformation, stifling viewpoint diversity online, elevating barriers to access news, hindering brand innovation, and inflating prices for goods and services.”
Judge Leonie Brinkema’s recent order perpetuates Google’s monopolistic grasp on advertising technology, and thus, its negative ramifications will continue unabated.
Judge Brinkema characterized Google as an illegal monopolist within the advertising technology arena. Her April 2025 ruling in the antitrust lawsuit initiated by the U.S.
Department of Justice and several states in 2023 affirmed that Google’s accumulation and centralization of the ad tech stack—the software layers enabling advertisers to purchase ad space from publishers—culminated in anti-competitive conduct.
This consolidation facilitated other illegitimate practices such as tying, self-preferencing, and price manipulation.
Advertisers found themselves compelled to shell out higher fees for ads, all while being deprived of transparency regarding their placement, while publishers resorted to erecting steeper paywalls to sustain operations.
We implored Judge Brinkema to adopt assertive remedies and even proposed solutions in the interest of the public.
The latest ruling from Judge Brinkema does not mandate Google to divest itself of AdX or to enact any structural modifications.
Significantly, Google will retain ownership of both its ad server and exchange, along with the associated conflicts of interest. The ruling modifies only the operational parameters governing auctions within the exchange.
Assuming the remedies possess adequate enforcement mechanisms, the ruling may minimally diminish some of Google’s advantages related to visibility, access, and leverage over pricing and inventory related to publishers.
This decision also reconfirms, as evidenced in the Google search case preceding it, how laborious and protracted the legal process can be in rectifying anti-competitive practices perpetrated by colossal corporations thriving in rapidly evolving markets.
To truly address these issues, stronger measures are imperative. For instance, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA), reintroduced in the Senate this past June, would prohibit dominant platforms from engaging in anti-competitive tactics such as self-preferencing, tying, and exploiting private data, while mandating interoperability and data portability.
Furthermore, the Advertising Middlemen Endangering Rigorous Internet Competition Accountability Act (AMERICA Act), revived in the Senate in 2025, explicitly targets the ad tech sector; it stipulates that dominant players cannot control multiple facets of the ad-buying and selling process (for example, owning both an ad exchange and a publisher tool).
Additionally, we require a dedicated digital regulator to adapt to marketplace changes in the future.
As I previously articulated, “To foster a more competitive and diverse marketplace, we must liberate the digital sector to cultivate an advertising ecosystem that serves everyone.”
Regrettably, this ruling, based on the current available evidence, does little to facilitate that transformation.
Source link: Techpolicy.press.
