Google will not be required to divest key parts of its advertising business, even after a federal court ruled that the tech company operated illegal monopolies in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets. 

In a court order issued Wednesday, Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia rejected the Department of Justice's proposed structural remedies, which would have required Google to divest its ad exchange and open-source some auction logic in its ad server.

Instead, Google will be forced to adopt some behavioral changes, though Brinkema has not yet specified what those changes will entail. In a tight, two-page filing previewing the full opinion, the judge wrote simply that "most" of the government's proposed behavioral remedies, with modification, were accepted. Those proposals included limits on self-preferencing tactics, data sharing with publishers, and nondiscriminatory treatment of third-party ad exchanges and ad servers; the extent to which these or other behavioral remedies will be adopted is yet to be seen.

Google did not respond to ADWEEK's request for comment by press time.

Business Insider Accuses Google of Suppressing Publisher Ad Revenue in Federal Lawsuit

The government first sued Google over its adtech business in 2023, accusing the behemoth of instituting practices that iced out competition and unfairly entrenched its dominance. Last year, the court ruled in the DOJ's favor, finding that Google maintained monopoly power and unlawfully tied its publisher ad server, DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP), to its ad exchange, AdX.

To remedy the unlawful behavior, the DOJ asked for a forced breakup of Google's adtech stack. Now, Google has its answer; though it will need to update some of its practices, the company will retain ownership of its core adtech business. 

On the back of Brinkema's initial ruling, swaths of publishers (including The Atlantic, USA Today, Vox Media, Billboard owner Penske Media, and others) and adtech platforms that help publishers monetize with ads have levied their own lawsuits against Google, seeking damages for alleged harms that the company's adtech practices caused.

A federal judge in a separate DOJ case against Google determined that the company also operated an illegal monopoly in the online search market. In that case, too, penalties were lighter than the government sought ; the judge ruled that Google must share some search data with competitors and avoid some exclusive distribution contracts, but it would not be forced to offload its Chrome browser.