The facts
On September 2, 2026, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, refused the Justice Department’s request to force Google to sell AdX.
Brinkema already ruled last year that Google illegally maintained monopolies in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display ads. This week she accepted “most of the parties’ proposed behavioral remedies” and kept the full opinion under seal for 14 days.
Google VP Lee-Anne Mulholland said the company was “very pleased.” The DOJ said it was “pleased the court ordered substantial relief.” This is the second time in a year a federal judge found Google a monopolist and then declined to carve it up. Judge Amit Mehta previously refused to make Google sell Chrome.
Our take
Scoreboard: you cheated, you won, you keep the trophy, please do not cheat as obviously next semester.
Behavioral remedies are the court’s way of saying “stop doing the thing” to a company whose entire business is doing the thing. Google keeps the pipes. Publishers still live in them. The slap on the wrist is a secret for two weeks, which is a very funny way to restore competition.
If you are waiting for a judge to save you from a $4 trillion ad machine, you are going to die waiting. Two monopolization wins. Zero breakups. The lawyers get another sequel. The internet still runs on the same cash register. That is not justice. That is a participation trophy for the DOJ.
