On Thursday, April 17, 2025, a federal judge finally said the quiet part out loud: Google is a monopolist in digital advertising and has been for more than a decade.
For those of us who’ve closely observed and at times, directly experienced, the profound influence Google’s dominance has had on the digital advertising ecosystem, the judge’s decision is both validating and consequential.
What the court actually decided
The court explicitly found Google liable for illegally monopolizing the digital advertising technology market. Specifically, it ruled that Google’s bundling of its publisher ad server (Google Ad Manager) and its dominant ad exchange (AdX) constituted an anti-competitive practice designed to stifle rivals and secure undue advantage.
Notably, the judge rejected Google’s defense that its exchange won because of superior speed and quality; she pointed to internal presentations admitting the company purposely gave AdX a “last look” advantage worth billions in diverted revenue.
Importantly, the court stopped short of finding that Google monopolized advertiser-facing ad networks, a narrow point in Google’s favor, but not one that changes the broader implications.
All in all, this practice has not only harmed competitors but has also directly diminished revenues for independent publishers and creators.
Why this matters
- Fairer auctions = more revenue (in theory). When a single player runs the auction and bids in it, the house always wins. Structural separation could put real market forces back to work, increasing the share of every ad dollar that reaches creators and publishers.
- More innovation from everyone else. A level playing field invites new SSPs, ad servers, and demand sources, which is what independent creators and publishers need to diversify revenue.
- Checks on Google’s zero‑click drift. The same incentives that pushed Google to siphon traffic into its own products also shaped its ad‑tech behavior. Curbing one monopoly pressure could help curb the other.
What happens next (and what to watch)
Looking ahead, the remedies phase will be critical. The DOJ and state Attorneys General have suggested structural remedies, including potentially requiring Google to divest or separate certain ad-tech products to restore fair competition.
Done right, this could help increase transparency and fairness in how demand flows through the programmatic ecosystem. But it’s also important to set expectations: fixing market structure doesn’t guarantee better economics.
From a creator and publisher perspective, the potential upside is more access to demand, less lock-in to Google’s tools, and maybe—just maybe—a bit more leverage in how ads are run on your site. But the biggest risks lie in implementation. A poorly designed remedy could lead to fragmentation or simply shift power to another dominant player.
There’s also a timing problem: change won’t happen overnight. Appeals could take years. And in the meantime, publishers and creators will still be navigating the same auction dynamics that existed before the ruling.
To be clear: this decision doesn’t mark the end of Google’s dominance in advertising. But it is a rare opportunity to rethink how ad tech works—and who it should work for.
As I explored in a recent Adweek piece, “Dismantling Google Will Not Fix the Ad-Tech Ecosystem,” even major structural changes—like spinning off Google’s ad server and exchange—are unlikely to address the full range of challenges facing creators and publishers.
The bottom line
Even with changes to Google’s ad tech stack, the deeper questions remain: Will advertisers spend more on the open web? Can new players offer lower fees and better tools? And how can creators build more resilient businesses in a system that’s still heavily shaped by a handful of platforms?
This ruling is a start. But rebuilding a fair, functional ad market is going to take more than one court case and more than one company’s restructuring.
Still, for the first time in years, the rules of the game may actually be up for revision.
For more of Paul’s insights on the recent ruling, check out episode 501 of Adweek’s podcast AdSpeak, “Antitrust and Google’s Adtech Alphabet Soup.”
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