A U.S. federal court has issued a ruling that puts an end to a years-long antitrust dispute: there will be no forced sale of the AdX advertising exchange. Alphabet shares responded with gains, as the market had priced in a scenario of radical business restructuring.
Judge Leonie Brinkema rejected the Department of Justice's motion seeking to compel Google to sell AdX — a key element of the advertising infrastructure that, according to the prosecution, was used for illegal market dominance. Instead of a forced breakup, the court ordered adjustments to the operation of advertising services, in particular, expanding competitors' access to auction bidding data.
The essence of the dispute and the positions of the parties
The litigation has been ongoing since 2023, when the DOJ and authorities from several states accused Google of monopolizing the online advertising market. In April 2025, Judge Brinkema sided with the prosecution, finding that the company illegally tied publishers to the AdX exchange and charged a 20% commission on each transaction. "Google's customers, competition, and ultimately users of the open internet suffered significant harm," the verdict stated at the time.
The defense insisted that selling AdX is technically complex and would harm client interests. The court ultimately agreed that a breakup would be an excessive measure. This marks the third consecutive defeat for U.S. regulators in their attempts to break up tech giants — earlier, similar lawsuits against Meta (recognized as extremist and banned in Russia) over Instagram and WhatsApp, as well as attempts to strip Google of its Chrome browser, did not succeed.
Notably, AdX's financial significance to Alphabet is relatively small: with the company valued at $4.08 trillion, this service in 2020 accounted for only 4.1% of revenue and 1.5% of operating profit. Nevertheless, the entire antitrust case was built around it.
However, it is too early to relax. In Europe, Google still has unresolved issues with regulators, its position in artificial intelligence remains shaky, and Alphabet's rising AI-related expenses are increasingly worrying investors.
My conclusion: the market rightly perceived this as a positive signal — a forced breakup would have created a dangerous precedent for the entire technology industry. However, the court victory itself does not remove strategic challenges: regulatory pressure is shifting toward AI and ecosystem practices, where Google remains vulnerable.