U.S. v. Google (Ads) Ruling is Unsealed

Two weeks after U.S. District Court Judge Leonie M. Brinkema revealed that she would not order Google to divest its advertising business, her full ruling has been unsealed. Among the remedies are requirements that Google allow rivals to integrate with the ad business and share more data with customers.

I can’t find the 106-page ruling referenced by The New York Times and a handful of other smaller publications, and none of these reports link to it, so I have to go by second-hand information here. But it appears that Judge Brinkema is requiring Google to make its advertising service interoperable with rivals, share ad auction data with publishers, and, because of the “gravity” of Google’s abuses, appoint an internal monitor to ensure the company’s compliance.

“[The imposed remedies] will be sufficient to effectively pry open to competition the ad tech markets that were injured by Google’s unlawful conduct, and prevent Google from reverting to anticompetitive conduct in these markets,” the ruling allegedly notes.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) had recommended that the court break up Google, but Judge Brinkema said that measure was “neither realistic nor needed.” Brinkema also noted that AI had not yet impacted the advertising business dramatically, as it had with online search, but that it would certainly happen more quickly than the timeline required to divest Google of its ad business.

Though this is a largely positive outcome for Google, especially compared to a breakup, the company says it will appeal the original verdict. And the DOJ might do likewise. “We will continue to review the opinion to consider the Department’s options,” a DOJ spokesperson said.