US court rules Google will not have to sell ad exchange after losing antitrust case

A US federal judge has spared Google from one of the harshest fixes the Justice Department wanted in its ad tech antitrust case: the company will not have to sell its online advertising exchange, once known as AdX.

That matters because the DOJ and a group of states had spent the trial arguing that Google used its size in online display ads to tilt the market in its favor. The government said Google had rigged ad auctions. The court agreed with one key part of that story, finding that Google illegally locked publishers into using its exchange.

But the judge did not buy the government’s claim that Google broke the law with the tools advertisers use. That distinction matters a lot in the remedy phase, where prosecutors tried to push the court toward a sale of the exchange as the cleanest way to open up competition.

Instead, Google comes out with a lighter touch than the DOJ wanted. The exchange itself is a relatively small piece of Google’s revenue, but forcing a sale could have sent shock waves through the rest of its ad business. It also would have been a loud warning shot to other Big Tech firms watching antitrust cases get narrowed or knocked back.