Google faces antitrust déjà vu as US seeks to break up its digital
advertising business
[September 23, 2025] By
MICHAEL LIEDTKE
After deflecting the U.S. Justice Department's attack on its illegal
monopoly in online search, Google is facing another attempt to dismantle
its internet empire in a trial focused on its abusive tactics in digital
advertising.
The trial that opened Monday in an Alexandria, Virginia, federal court
revolves around the harmful conduct that resulted in U.S. District Judge
Leonie Brinkema declaring parts of Google's digital advertising
technology to be an illegal monopoly. The judge found that Google has
been engaging in behavior that stifles competition to the detriment of
online publishers that depend on the system for revenue.
Google and the Justice Department will spend the next two weeks in court
presenting evidence in a “remedy” trial that will culminate in Brinkema
issuing a ruling on how to restore fair market conditions.
“The purpose of a remedy is doing what is necessary to restore
competition,” said Julia Tarver Wood as part of Monday's opening
statement for the Justice Department's antitrust division.
Wood asserted Google is manipulating the market in a way that is
antithetical to free market competition.
“The means to cheat are buried in computer codes and algorithms," Wood
said.
An attorney for Google, Karen Dunn, countered that the remedy proposed
by the government is reckless and radical, and that the government is
attempting to remove Google entirely from the competition.
No matter how the judge rules, Google says it will appeal the earlier
decision labeling the ad network as a monopoly. Appeals can't be filed
until the remedy is determined.
The case, filed in 2023 under President Joe Biden's administration,
threatens the complex network that Google has spent the past 17 years
building to power its dominant digital advertising business. Besides
accounting for most of the $305 billion in revenue that Google's
services division generates for its corporate parent Alphabet Inc.,
digital advertising sales provide the lifeblood that keeps thousands of
websites alive.
If the Justice Department gets its way, Brinkema will order Google to
sell parts of its ad technology — a proposal that the company's lawyers
warned would “invite disruption and damage” to consumers and the
internet's ecosystem. The Justice Department contends a breakup would be
the most effective and quickest way to undercut a monopoly that has been
stifling competition and innovation for years.
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 Google believes it has already made
enough changes to its “Ad Manager” system, including providing more
options and pricing options, to resolve the issues the Brinkema
flagged in her monopoly ruling.,
The legal battle over Google's advertising technology mirrors
another showdown that the company recently navigated after another
federal judge condemned its dominant search engine as an illegal
monopoly and then held remedy hearings earlier this year to consider
how to stop the misconduct.
In that case, the Justice Department also proposed a severe
crackdown that would have required Google to sell its popular Chrome
browser, but U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta decided a less dramatic
shake-up was needed amid a search market being reshaped by
artificial intelligence technology in a decision issued earlier this
month.
Even though Google didn't agree with all aspects of Mehta's
decision, the ruling was widely seen as a slap on the wrist — a
sentiment that has helped propel Alphabet's stock price to new
highs. The 20% gain since Mehta's decision helped make Alphabet only
the fourth publicly traded company to reach a market value of $3
trillion — an increase of more than $1 trillion since Brinkema
branded Google's ad technology as a monopoly in April. Alphabet's
shares dipped by about 1% Monday to close at $252.53.
In an indication that the outcome of the search monopoly case might
sway things in the advertising technology proceedings, Brinkema
asked both Google and the Justice Department to address Mehta's
decision during the upcoming trial.
As they did in the search case, Google's lawyers already have been
asserting in court papers that AI technology being used by ad
network rivals like Meta Platforms is reshaping the way the market
works and overriding the need for the Justice Department's “radical”
proposals.
The Justice Department is “fighting for a remedy that would vanquish
a past that has been overtaken by technological and market
transformations in the way digital ads are consumed," Google's
lawyers argued leading up to the trial.
____
AP Writer Olivia Diaz contributed to this report from Alexandria,
Virginia.
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