According to Financial Times News, federal judge Leonie Brinkema has signaled reluctance to break up Google’s advertising business during final hearings about remedies for the company’s monopoly violations. Back in April, Brinkema ruled Google had “wilfully” monopolized parts of the digital ads market, but now she’s calling the Department of Justice’s breakup request a “dramatic change” that wouldn’t be as “easily enforceable” as Google’s proposed solutions. The judge expressed concern about timing, noting that any court-ordered breakup would likely be delayed during Google’s inevitable appeal process while the company’s core search and ads business continues generating over $50 billion in quarterly revenue. Brinkema specifically questioned the DOJ’s failure to identify a potential buyer for Google’s ad exchange, calling the divestiture proposal “fairly abstract” and emphasizing that courts need to be “far more down to earth and concrete.” She’s expected to issue her final decision next year.
The judge’s practical concerns
What really stands out here is how practical Judge Brinkema’s concerns are. She’s not just thinking about legal theory – she’s thinking about real-world implementation. When she points out that nobody’s even identified a buyer for Google’s ad exchange, that’s a massive practical problem. And her comment about timing being “of the essence” shows she understands how quickly the tech industry moves. Basically, by the time any breakup actually happened, the market could look completely different. It’s the same logic we saw in the separate Google search case where the judge rejected forcing Chrome’s sale. These courts are realizing that breaking up tech giants isn’t like splitting up Standard Oil – the pieces are too interconnected and the industry moves too fast.
The bigger Big Tech trend
This isn’t just about Google. Look at what’s happening across the board with Big Tech antitrust cases. The FTC just lost its attempt to unwind Meta’s Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions. The DOJ lost its bid to force Google to sell Chrome. Now we’re seeing the same pattern play out with Google’s ad business. There’s clearly a judicial trend emerging here – courts are becoming increasingly skeptical of structural remedies like breakups. Instead, they’re leaning toward behavioral fixes that let companies keep their structure but change how they operate. Google’s proposal to share bid data with competitors and install monitoring trustees fits perfectly with this approach. The question is whether these behavioral remedies actually work or if they’re just Band-Aids on much deeper competitive problems.
What’s at stake for Google
Let’s be real – this case is existential for Google. We’re talking about the business that generates half of Alphabet’s total revenue. That $50+ billion per quarter doesn’t just pay for Google Search – it funds everything from DeepMind’s AI research to Waymo’s self-driving cars. Losing control of their ad exchange would be catastrophic. But here’s the thing: even if Google wins this round, the pressure isn’t going away. The DOJ lawyer warned that behavioral remedies alone would “freeze the status quo in place” and that Google has the “wherewithal” to test their bounds in “every conceivable way.” That’s probably true. So while Google might avoid a breakup this time, they’re going to be living under a microscope for years to come.
Where this is all heading
I think we’re witnessing a fundamental shift in how regulators and courts approach Big Tech monopolies. The old breakup playbook from the Microsoft era just doesn’t seem to be working. Judges are worried about unintended consequences, about disrupting services that millions of businesses rely on, about whether they have the technical expertise to oversee complex tech divestitures. Meanwhile, Google’s lawyer wasn’t wrong when she called the DOJ’s breakup request a “grenade” that could cause customer disruption and higher prices. The challenge is finding solutions that actually restore competition without breaking what works. Honestly? It feels like everyone’s still figuring this out as they go along. And with Brinkema’s decision not coming until next year, we’ve got plenty of time to watch this high-stakes drama play out.
