Why Google Is Battling a Ruling That Could Reshape the Internet?

Alphabet’s Google said it will appeal parts of a U.S. court ruling that found the company illegally maintained monopoly power in the digital advertising market. The tech giant plans to challenge the “adverse” portion of the decision issued Thursday by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who ruled that Google willfully acquired and preserved dominance in two key areas: publisher ad servers and ad exchanges.

These tools form the backbone of how websites, especially news publishers and other online content platforms, store, manage, and sell their ad inventory. Brinkema’s decision stated that Google’s actions shut out competition and hurt both its customers and end users.

Judgement On Google

“In addition to depriving rivals of the ability to compete, this exclusionary conduct substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web,” the judge wrote in her opinion.

While the decision was a mixed one—Brinkema ruled that the Department of Justice had failed to prove that Google’s advertiser tools or past acquisitions, such as DoubleClick and AdMeld, were anticompetitive—she sided with prosecutors on their core claim that Google's publisher-facing ad tools violated antitrust laws.

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The ruling marks a major victory for the DOJ, which has argued that Google’s grip over the digital ad ecosystem harms fair market competition and inflates prices. Prosecutors have called for Google to divest at least part of its advertising business, particularly the Google Ad Manager suite, which includes the publisher ad server and exchange.

The next step in the legal process will be a separate trial to determine what actions Google must take to restore competition. The DOJ is expected to push for a structural remedy—potentially a breakup of Google’s ad tech stack. That trial date has not yet been scheduled.

This is the second time a U.S. court has found Google in violation of antitrust laws, following an earlier decision concerning its monopoly in online search.