Google will not have to sell its AdX ad exchange, after US District Judge Leonie Brinkema rejected the Justice Department’s divestiture request in a two-page order and adopted most of the behavioral remedies both sides proposed. Her full opinion stays sealed for 14 days while both sides propose redactions, and she gave them 30 days to draft a joint final judgment, so what Google actually has to do is still unclear. Brinkema found in April 2025 that Google had willfully monopolized the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets and unlawfully tied the two together, a liability finding Google is appealing. Google’s own proposal offered to share real-time AdX bids with rival ad servers, retire Unified Pricing Rules so publishers can set floors by bidder, and drop first look and last look.
