Judge Rejects DOJ Bid to Divest Google's Ad Tech Business

A federal judge has rejected the Justice Department's request to force Google to sell off parts of its advertising technology business, opting instead for behavioral remedies in the company's antitrust case. U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia issued the order on Wednesday, September 2.



Brinkema rejected three structural measures sought by the plaintiffs: the divestiture of AdX, the open-sourcing of the final auction logic in DoubleClick for Publishers, and the contingent divestiture of the remainder of DFP. She accepted most of the behavioral measures put forward by the parties, with modifications.


Details of those measures are not yet public. The accompanying Memorandum Opinion will remain under seal for 14 days while the parties review it for potential redactions. They have 30 days to meet and confer and submit a jointly proposed Final Judgment reflecting the court's decisions.

Google welcomed the ruling. "We're very pleased the Court rejected the DOJ's proposal to break apart tools that help small businesses reach new customers and grow," Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google's vice president of regulatory affairs, said in a statement.

The case began in January 2023, when the DOJ and eight states sued Google over its control of key parts of the digital advertising technology market. Brinkema found Google liable for anticompetitive conduct in April 2025, setting up the proceedings over what measures would be imposed.

Google also avoided a breakup in the separate search antitrust case last year. In September 2025, Judge Amit Mehta rejected proposals to force Google to divest Chrome while ordering the company to end certain exclusive distribution agreements and share some search data with competitors. Google is appealing the monopoly ruling and remedies.