Remedy Hearing Underway in U.S. v. Google (Advertising)

With Google’s suspiciously light punishment in U.S. v. Google (Search) behind it, the online giant faces another possible breakup. The remedy hearing in U.S. v. Google (Advertising) is now underway in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. And it could result in Google being stripped of much of its dominant online advertising business if the U.S. Department of Justice and 17 U.S. allied against it have their way.

Google was found to have an illegal monopoly in online advertising in April after a three-week bench trial. U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that the company “violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act by willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power in the open-web display publisher ad server market and the open-web display ad exchange market. The judge also found Google in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act for “unlawfully tying its publisher ad server and ad exchange.”

As with the Search case, Google was found to have harmed competitors, partners, and consumers by illegally maintaining and expanding a monopoly. And one of the potential outcomes here has Google divesting itself of some internal businesses it established after acquiring DoubleClick in 2008. Google has proposed a lighter punishment in which is keeps its ad empire intact but changes the ad auction bidding system to benefit publishers once again.

Judge Brinkema is overseeing the remedy hearing, and she indicated in a May hearing that she was open to splitting up Google.

“If you get rid of the [ad] exchange, which is the connector between those two, you no longer tie the publishers in that respect, and the advertisers can go out and use any exchange that they want,” Brinkema said at the time. “Google can’t do anything to try to sabotage that free exercise of choice. Why would that not work?”

Google commands 87 percent of online advertising by revenue. And it earned over $30 billion from online advertising in 2024, though that’s only a portion of its overall ad business.

While the outcome of these hearings is uncertain, one thing is certain: No matter what Judge Brinkema rules, Google says it will appeal the verdict.