For the second time in under a year, a federal judge has found Google guilty of abusing its monopoly power—this time in the online advertising industry. In a recent ruling, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema determined that Google used its dominance in digital ad technology to unfairly bolster its profits, further strengthening its $1.8 trillion tech empire.
This decision follows a separate antitrust ruling last August, where a judge concluded that Google’s search engine had been illegally suppressing competition and innovation. The latest case targets Google’s vast advertising network, which came under scrutiny during President Biden’s administration after the Justice Department previously focused on its search engine during the Trump era.
Although federal regulators have now won both major cases, Google is expected to appeal. Legal battles could drag on for years while the company also pushes into emerging sectors like artificial intelligence. The penalty phase for the most recent case will likely begin later this year or in early 2026. Meanwhile, similar hearings in the search case are set to begin Monday in Washington, D.C., where the government will argue for serious penalties—potentially including a forced divestiture of Google’s Chrome browser.
Brinkema’s 115-page ruling delves into how Google has, over the past 17 years, built a powerful marketing engine tied to its search engine and other popular products such as Chrome, YouTube, and Google Maps. A key part of this system came from its $3.2 billion acquisition of ad tech firm DoubleClick in 2008. Although regulators approved the deal at the time, it later became clear that it gave Google a dominant position in digital advertising—allowing it to control pricing and limit competition in an ecosystem that many websites rely on for income.
Justice Department lawyers argued that Google came to dominate the full ad tech pipeline: the tools publishers use to sell ad space, the software advertisers use to place their ads, and the exchange that matches both sides in split-second online auctions. While the judge didn’t side with the government on every point, she found that Google misused its market control, harming online publishers who depend on fair access to ad revenue.
“Google has tied its publisher ad server and ad exchange together through contracts and technology in a way that helped it maintain monopoly power,” Brinkema wrote. “It reinforced this position through anticompetitive policies and by removing features customers wanted.”
Google stated that it plans to appeal the ruling. “We disagree with the Court’s decision regarding our publisher tools,” said Lee-Anne Mulholland, the company’s VP of regulatory affairs. “Publishers have many options and choose Google because our tools are easy to use, affordable, and effective.”
Throughout the trial, Google and its parent company Alphabet maintained that the Justice Department’s view was outdated and didn’t reflect today’s competitive ad market. Their lawyers argued that the government ignored major players like Meta (Facebook), Amazon, Microsoft, and Comcast, and excluded advertising on newer platforms such as mobile apps and streaming services.
At the trial, the Justice Department highlighted how Google’s dominance has hurt news organizations that rely heavily on digital ads to fund journalism. Executives from publishers such as Gannett (USA Today) and News Corp (The Wall Street Journal) testified that they had few viable alternatives to Google’s ad tech tools.
Now, the government is in a position to attempt to break up parts of Google’s complex ad empire. When the case was first filed over two years ago, officials said Google should be required to sell at least its Ad Manager business, which includes both publisher tools and the ad exchange technology.