Google's Ad-Tech Empire Remedies Criticized as Ineffective

A federal judge in Virginia has made public her ruling on remedies for Google's ad-tech empire after being declared an illegal monopolist. The remedies, while seemingly effective on their face, have been criticized as insufficient to prevent future abuses of monopoly power and show the continued need for legislation.

The US Capitol is seen Friday, Sept. 25, 2026, in Washington. Judge Leonie Brinkema found in April 2025 that Google's digital ad-tech empire was an illegal monopoly due to its acquisition and consolidation of the ad-tech stack into its Ad Exchange (AdX). This allowed anti-competitive behaviors like tying, self-preferencing, and price manipulation.

The behavioral remedies designed to alter Google's monopolistic behavior include prohibiting Google from requiring publishers that use its ad server, DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP), to also use AdX. Additionally, AdX and DFP must be integrated with Prebid, the open-source software that lets publishers invite multiple ad exchanges to bid for ad space.

However, critics argue that these remedies don't actually remove the incentive for Google to favor its own products, as it still owns both AdX and DFP along with the conflicts of interest therein. In fact, Google has a history of breaking promises, including promising not to combine web browsing data from DoubleClick with user data from existing Google assets in 2007.

The compliance monitoring is also criticized for being ineffective, as it gives Google a minimum of 30 days to respond to any concerns the monitor may have about a violation. This sets up the remedies for failure and allows Google to bend but not break them.