Overview
- On Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema rejected the DOJ’s request to force Google to sell its AdX advertising exchange and instead issued remedies that change how Google must operate its ad business.
- Brinkema had already found on April 17, 2025, that Google illegally tied its publisher ad server to its AdX exchange, a practice the court called self‑preferencing that blocked rivals from competing effectively.
- The judge filed a sealed opinion to allow 14 days for redactions, gave the parties 30 days to submit a jointly proposed final judgment, and left open appeals and further enforcement actions as the next steps.
- The ordered fixes focus on interoperability and curbs on preferential auction practices so rival ad servers and exchanges can plug into Google’s stack and access the same real‑time auction data Google uses.
- The decision keeps AdX under Alphabet control and lifted short‑term market concerns with modest stock gains, but publishers and independent adtech firms face months of legal and operational uncertainty while the DOJ evaluates its options and Google appeals.