Blog Playbooks · Who Keeps Score · Part 6
Two U.S. courts found Google broke antitrust law. What changed, and what didn't
A Washington court ruled on search in 2024 and a Virginia court on ad tech in 2025. Both ordered remedies, neither broke Google up, and both cases are headed for appeal. Part 6 of Who Keeps Score.
Most of the businesses we work with buy Google Ads, and we buy them on their behalf. So it is worth knowing, in plain terms, what two federal courts have said about the company running that auction, and what actually changed as a result.
Two different judges, in two different cases, found that Google broke U.S. antitrust law. Both cases ended in remedies that change some of Google's contracts and plumbing. Neither one broke the company up. And neither one is final, because appeals are underway or coming. This is not legal advice. It is a reading of the rulings and the government's own announcements.
The search case
On August 5, 2024, Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in the case the Justice Department and a group of states brought over Google Search.
Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly. It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.
The court found two markets, general search services and general search text ads, and found that Google has monopoly power in both. The opinion puts numbers on it. By 2020, 89.2% of general search queries went through Google, and 94.9% on mobile devices. The deals that kept Google as the default on phones and browsers were expensive: in 2021, the opinion says, Google paid $26.3 billion in revenue share under those contracts.
Source: Memorandum opinion, United States v. Google LLC, D.D.C., August 5, 2024
The remedies came on September 2, 2025. According to the Justice Department's announcement, Google "will be barred from entering or maintaining exclusive contracts relating to the distribution of Google Search," and those limits also reach Chrome, Google Assistant and the Gemini app. Google "will have to make certain search index and user-interaction data available to certain competitors," and must "offer certain competitors search and search text ads syndication services." The court did not order Google to sell Chrome.
Notice the word "certain," twice. Which competitors qualify, and on what terms, is left to be worked out under the court's supervision, so it would be wrong to say rivals are receiving Google's search data today. Google has appealed to the D.C. Circuit and, as reported by PPC Land, filed its opening brief on May 22, 2026, asking for full reversal. The government and states have cross-appealed, asking for stronger remedies. No appeals court has ruled.
The ad tech case
The second case is about the machinery behind display ads on websites: the tools publishers use to sell ad space, and the exchange where those ads are auctioned.
On April 17, 2025, Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that Google "violated antitrust law by monopolizing open-web digital advertising markets," in the Justice Department's summary, harming "Google's publishing customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web." Coverage of the opinion reports that the court found monopolies in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets and unlawful tying between them, and rejected the government's claim of a monopoly in advertiser ad networks.
The remedies order followed on September 2, 2026. The Justice Department's September 16 announcement lists the main pieces:
- "Google must create and support integrations between AdX and Prebid, and DFP and Prebid," so Google's exchange and ad server work with an open-source rival bidding system.
- AdWords (the court's name for Google Ads) cannot bid preferentially into AdX, and cannot bid directly into DFP.
- Publishers can access and export their own data from DFP and AdX.
- A monitor and a technical committee will oversee compliance for six years.
The court did not order Google to sell AdX, its ad exchange. Google welcomed that. "We're very pleased the court rejected the DOJ's proposal to break apart tools that help small businesses reach new customers and grow," Google's Lee-Anne Mulholland said, as reported by Al Jazeera, which also reported that Google plans to appeal the liability ruling. The Justice Department said it was "evaluating appropriate next steps." The parties were told to file a joint proposed final judgment; as of today we have not confirmed that a final judgment has been entered.
- 1FiledSearch (D.C.) and ad tech (Virginia), both brought by the Justice Department and states
- 2LiabilitySearch: August 5, 2024. Ad tech: April 17, 2025. Google found to have broken antitrust law in both
- 3RemediesSearch: September 2, 2025. Ad tech: September 2, 2026. Behavioral rules, no breakup
- 4AppealSearch: Google's appeal and a government cross-appeal pending at the D.C. Circuit. Ad tech: Google says it will appeal
What changed, and what did not
Europe has reached similar conclusions on its own track. In July 2026 the European Commission fined Google €460 million under the Digital Markets Act for favoring its own shopping, hotel, transport and sports results in Search, on top of the €2.42 billion Google Shopping fine from 2017. Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera put the principle plainly: "The best products should succeed because they're better, not because they're owned by the company running the search engine." Google has said it will appeal, as reported by Pearl Cohen and others.
None of that changes what a studio owner sees in her Google Ads account on Monday morning.
What the rulings changed
Exclusive default deals for Search are barred. Some competitors may get access to certain Google search data, once terms are set. In ad tech, Google's exchange and ad server must work with Prebid, and Google's ad buying tool cannot favor its own exchange. Publishers can export their data. A monitor watches for six years.
What they did not change
Google still owns Search, Chrome, Android, YouTube, Gmail, the ad auction and the reports that tell you how your ads did. No part of the company was sold. Both cases can still change on appeal. Your cost per click is still set in Google's auction, by Google's rules.
The courts drew lines around specific conduct and left the business standing. The search appeal has not been argued yet, and the ad tech appeal has not started, so it makes sense to plan your marketing around the field as it is today.
Build the list you would keep
Here is a simple test. Imagine your ad account went dark tomorrow: a billing problem, a policy flag, a suspended account. What would you still have?
Say a 12-location studio brand runs that test. It may find it has a booking system, an email list nobody has cleaned in years and a front desk phone. The fix is unglamorous work on data it already owns.
- Count what you own today
Pull every member, lead and past guest from your booking or membership system. Count how many have a current email, a mobile number with text consent, and a location. Write down the three numbers.
- Capture consent at every join and booking
Every intro offer, class booking and consult form should ask for email and text consent, in plain words, and store it in your own system.
- Clean and deduplicate monthly
One record per person, matched by phone or email, with their home location and join date.
- Send something worth opening
A schedule change, a new class, an honest offer. A list you never use goes stale.
- Run the dark-account test
Once a quarter, estimate how many bookings next month you could fill from your own list if paid ads stopped. Watch that number grow.
Earlier in the series, Part 3 looked at how Google also runs the inbox your emails land in. Next, in Part 7, we turn to Meta: the case it won in the U.S., and the European decision about other advertisers' data that it is still fighting. If you buy Google display ads, You can finally cap Google's display spend covers a control worth knowing.
Sources
- U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, United States v. Google LLC, No. 20-cv-3010 (APM), Memorandum Opinion, August 5, 2024. courtlistener.com
- U.S. Department of Justice, "Department of Justice Wins Significant Remedies Against Google," September 2, 2025. justice.gov
- PPC Land, "Google asks appeals court to throw out its entire search monopoly loss," May 26, 2026. ppc.land
- U.S. Department of Justice, "Department of Justice Prevails in Landmark Antitrust Case Against Google," April 17, 2025. justice.gov
- U.S. Department of Justice, "Department of Justice Again Wins Substantial Relief Against Google," September 16, 2026. justice.gov
- Al Jazeera, "US judge rejects bid to break up Google's ad business," September 2, 2026. aljazeera.com
- European Commission, "Commission fines Google €890 million for breaches of the Digital Markets Act," July 23, 2026. ec.europa.eu
- European Commission, "Antitrust: Commission fines Google €2.42 billion for abusing dominance as search engine by giving illegal advantage to own comparison shopping service," June 27, 2017. ec.europa.eu
- Pearl Cohen, "European Commission Fines Google €890 Million for Digital Markets Act Breaches," July 30, 2026. pearlcohen.com
