A US federal judge has declined to force a breakup of Google’s adtech business, even though the company was found to have operated illegal monopolies in two key markets: its ad exchange, AdX, and its publisher ad server, DFP. Instead of a structural split, the court imposed a set of behavioural fixes that leave Google’s stack largely intact.
What the court ordered
The remedies are designed to make Google’s auction machinery more open, rather than to unwind the company’s ownership of it.
- Connect AdX and DFP to Prebid and require them to play by the same rules as other participants.
- Offer AdX bids to alternative publisher ad servers on the same terms they would receive through DFP.
- Limit self-preferencing within Google’s adtech stack.
- Share auction win and loss data with publishers.
The outcome follows a similar pattern in the search antitrust case, where another federal judge also stopped short of a structural split.
Why The Trade Desk’s pitch is under pressure
The Trade Desk built its brand as the independent, neutral alternative to Google. Its Unified ID and UID 2.0 projects were meant to reduce Google’s cookie advantage, and OpenPath let buyers transact directly with publishers, bypassing supply-side platforms to cut fees and latency.
That argument was strongest when publishers felt locked into Google’s auction. Now the court-ordered remedies may soften it. If Google has to show competing bids, connect to Prebid and offer equal terms beyond DFP, the auction starts to look more transparent. OpenPath’s original promise as the honest counterweight loses some of its edge.
Jeff Green, CEO of The Trade Desk, wrote in 2024: “All those brilliant minds inside of a nearly $2 trillion company couldn’t do better than this?”
Green had predicted Google would eventually exit the open internet because its privacy and antitrust risks live there, not its money. That has not happened in the 21 months since. But Google itself has said the open web is already in rapid decline, and its core search product is shifting toward an AI answer engine.
The Trade Desk and Google both declined to comment for the original Adweek report.
What marketers should do
The open-web identity conversation has also cooled. Google ultimately kept third-party cookies in Chrome, reducing urgency around replacement IDs. Still, buyers now operate in a multi-ID world where cookies, APIs and token-based tools like UID 2.0 run side by side.
For marketing and media teams, the practical questions are simpler than the courtroom drama. Ask adtech partners how auction data is shared, and whether buys can reach alternative ad servers on equal terms. Run a quick dependency audit so no single stack becomes a silent bottleneck. Don’t assume alternative IDs became irrelevant just because cookies stayed.
The Trade Desk is not standing still: it has broadened its pitch to connected TV and agentic advertising. The fight over the open web may be entering a new phase rather than ending.
Source: Adweek
