On Thursday, April 17, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) won its antitrust lawsuit against Google. The U.S. District Court found Google guilty of illegally monopolizing key segments of the online advertising technology market.
The antitrust lawsuit was initially filed against Google in January 2023 by the Department of Justice, along with the Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia, for monopolizing multiple digital advertising technology products in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.
The lawsuit took place in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, with the allegations that Google had a monopoly over essential digital advertising tools, which are collectively referred to as the “ad tech stack,” which is needed by websites to make money from ads and by advertisers to buy ads and reach potential customers.
The goal of the lawsuit was to bring back fair competition to the online advertising technology market and potentially get monetary and equitable relief for any harm caused to the public.
The lawsuit investigations covered a span of 15 years, as it allegedly claimed Google had been engaged in anti-competitive and exclusionary conduct all those years by neutralizing or eliminating tech competitors through acquisitions, cementing its dominance, and thereby thwarting the ability for consumers to use competing products.
The DOJ’s core allegations against Google were
- Buying out Competitors: The DOJ asserted that Google strategically bought companies that offered important tools used in the ad tech market, thereby absorbing potential rivals and gaining control over essential parts of the market.
- Forcing Adoption of Google Tools: The DOJ claimed Google did this by restricting access to its “must-have advertiser demand” to its own ad exchange and by creating a lock-in effect by making ad exchange conditional on publishers using Google’s ad server.
- Distorting Auction Competition: The DOJ claimed that Google limited real-time bidding on publisher ad space only to its ad exchange, which prevented healthy competition with other ads of the same inventory.
- Auction Manipulation: The basis was that Google manipulated various auction mechanics to protect itself from competition, prevent the growth of rival companies, and hinder the development and adoption of new ad technologies.
Based on these allegations, the DOJ argued that Google made excessive profits and estimated it to be over 30% of the money spent on digital advertising that utilizes their technology. The department also argued that Google’s actions had actively hindered the growth and adoption of competing technologies in the ad tech space.
The trial began on September 9, 2024, and lasted up to September 27, 2027, taking place after Google suffered a defeat on August 5, 2024, regarding an antitrust lawsuit submitted by the DOJ in 2020 that accused Google of illegally monopolizing the general online search engine market and the market for search engine text advertising.
Google released a blog in its defense on September 8, 2024, saying, “In court, we would show that ad buyers and sellers have many options, and when they choose Google, they do so because our ad tech is simple, affordable, and effective. In short, it works.” Google further disputed the DOJ’s definition of the ad tech market, calling it “gerrymandered.”
On November 25, 2024, the closing argument was delivered by both parties in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. DOJ lawyer Aaron Teitelbaum urged Judge Leonie Brinkema to hold Google accountable for anticompetitive conduct, saying, “Google rigged the rules of the road.”
Google legal representative, lawyer Karen Dunn, said the DOJ had failed to provide sufficient legal evidence to back up their antitrust claims and asked the judge to disregard antitrust and overrule key precedents.
Dunn furthered her argument by saying, “The law simply does not support what plaintiffs are arguing in this case,” as the DOJ was misinterpreting Google’s actions, which, according to Dunn, are legitimate business strategies. She further asserted the fact that the online advertising market was healthy and competitive, undermining DOJ’s claim of a monopoly.
Publishers invited as witnesses by the DOJ stated that they felt compelled to use Google’s advertising services, even if they disagreed with certain features or policies, since there was no other way to access the huge advertising demand Google’s ad network provided. One of the key witnesses, News Corp, reported that in 2017 alone they stood the chance of losing $9 million in ad revenue if they had chosen not to make use of Google’s ad services.
On April 17, 2025, Judge Leonie Brinkema said in the ruling against Google that “Google had willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts that enabled it to acquire and maintain monopoly power.”
She further stated that the conduct substantially “harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and , ultimately, consumers of information on the open web.”
Following the results of the trial, Google has announced plans to appeal the ruling, defending its ad tech practices as beneficial to the market. As the case moves into the remedies phase, the court will consider appropriate measures to restore competition to the ad tech market.
