Judge Rejects DOJ Bid to Force Google to Sell AdX Ad Exchange, Orders Behavioral Remedies Instead

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, rejected the Justice Department's demand that Google sell its AdX online advertising exchange, handing Alphabet a significant victory in the government's antitrust case over ad technology. The judge instead accepted most of the parties' proposed behavioral remedies as a substitute for a structural breakup.

The ruling follows Brinkema's April 2025 finding that Google illegally held monopoly power in two markets: publisher ad servers and ad exchanges. The judge had found at that time that Google unlawfully locked publishers on its ad server into using AdX, which charges publishers a 20% fee on transactions that occur in real time when users load web pages. The DOJ had argued at a remedies trial that Google could not be trusted to operate AdX given its past conduct, while Google countered that a forced sale would be technically difficult and damaging to customers.

The decision marks the third consecutive time a federal judge has declined to order a structural breakup of a major tech company in cases brought by U.S. antitrust enforcers, following similar outcomes in other Big Tech proceedings. The ruling is a further blow to DOJ efforts to use the courts to force asset sales as a remedy for illegal monopoly conduct in the technology sector.