- The court rejected the divestiture of AdX, the open-sourcing of DFP’s auction logic, and the contingent sale of the rest of DFP. [1]
- Google must build AdX and DFP integrations with Prebid and let AdX bid into rival publisher ad servers. [2]
- Publishers can access and export their own DFP and AdX data, and get documentation of how each ad won. [3][2]
- Google Ads may not bid preferentially into AdX or bid directly into DFP. Display & Video 360 is not covered. [3][2]
- The final judgment lasts six years, extendable, and applies worldwide. [3]
- It takes effect 60 days after entry, and the opinion expects the remedies to be live within 15 months. [3]
- No fee cap. The 20% take rate falls only if competition pushes it down. [3]
On September 2, 2026, Judge Leonie Brinkema signed two documents in the government’s ad tech case against Google. The order ran to two pages and said what everyone wanted to know: the plaintiffs’ proposals to divest AdX, to open-source the final auction logic of DFP, and to divest what remained of DFP were rejected, and most of the parties’ behavioral remedies were accepted as modified. [1] The 106-page opinion explaining how stayed under seal for 14 days so the parties could ask for redactions. [1] Neither side asked for any, and on September 16 the court unsealed it. [4]
The headline is that Google keeps AdX. The substance is what it has to do with it. For six years, under a monitor, Google has to let its exchange and its publisher ad server work with software it does not control, and it has to show publishers data it used to keep. That is a smaller remedy than a breakup and a bigger one than it sounds, and most of the coverage has told you only the first half.
What the court refused, and why
The plaintiffs asked for three structural changes: sell AdX, publish DFP’s decision-making algorithm as open source so publishers could run and modify it, and, if needed, sell the rest of DFP. [3][5] The court’s answer came in one sentence near the start of the opinion.
For the reasons discussed in this Memorandum Opinion, the Court finds that structural remedies are neither realistic nor needed and that the parties’ substantially overlapping behavioral remedies as modified in this Memorandum Opinion will be sufficient to “effectively pry open to competition” the ad tech markets that were injured by Google’s unlawful conduct, and prevent Google from reverting to anticompetitive conduct in these markets.
United States v. Google LLC, Memorandum Opinion, September 2, 2026
Two reasons carry most of the weight. The first is time. The opinion notes that a divestiture would take multiple years before counting any appeal, while every behavioral remedy would be fully in effect within 15 months. [3] The second is fit. The court found that the plaintiffs never argued at the liability stage that DFP’s “black box” auction logic caused the monopoly, so an open-source auction was not tailored to what had been found unlawful. [3] In its place Google offered, and the court accepted, technical documentation of how DFP makes its choices.
The liability findings still sit underneath all of this, and they are not small. In 2022 Google had 91% of the worldwide publisher ad server market for open-web display by impressions, and AdX charged a take rate of 20% for over a decade. [3] Google has said it disagrees with the liability ruling on its publisher tool and will appeal. [6]
What Google has to build
Strip out the legal scaffolding and the remedy is an engineering specification with a regulator attached. The Justice Department lists four pieces. [2]
- Prebid on both sides of the stack: Google must create and support integrations between AdX and Prebid, the open-source header bidding standard, and between DFP and Prebid.
- AdX bids for other ad servers: AdX has to submit real-time bids to publisher ad servers that are not Google’s, so a publisher can buy AdX demand without running DFP.
- Data a publisher can take away: publishers can access and export their own data from DFP and AdX, which the department says will make switching easier.
- A monitor for six years, backed by a technical committee.
The opinion adds detail the press release leaves out. The parties’ proposals make AdX bid data, including all winning and losing bids for each auction, available to publishers. [3] Google has agreed to provide DFP technical documentation with a data file showing, for each ad served, the candidate prices and any price adjustments DFP applied when it chose the winner. [3] And the old auction advantages go for indirect transactions: First Look, which gave AdX a first right of refusal on every impression, Last Look, which let AdX see rival bids before bidding, and Unified Pricing Rules, which stopped publishers from setting a higher floor for AdX than for other exchanges. [3]
| Question | What the plaintiffs asked | What the court ordered |
|---|---|---|
| AdX | Divest it | Keep it, integrated with Prebid and rival ad servers [1][2] |
| DFP’s auction logic | Open-source it | Technical documentation and per-ad data instead [3] |
| Term | 15 years | Six years, extendable [3] |
| Prebid integration for DFP | Within 18 months | Google’s commitment of 12 to 15 months [3] |
| Buy-side remedies | Google Ads and Display & Video 360 | Google Ads only [3] |
| Geography | Google argued for the United States only | Worldwide [3] |
The buy side: Google Ads yes, DV360 no
For advertisers, the narrowest line in the opinion matters most. The Justice Department calls Google Ads by its old name, AdWords, and the remedy against it is real: it cannot bid preferentially into AdX or other Google ad tech because Google owns them, and it cannot bid directly into DFP. [2] The second rule looks forward rather than back. The opinion notes that Google Ads does not currently bid directly through DFP, but evidence at the remedies trial showed the possibility was on the horizon through a product called Google Partner Bidding, and a direct pipe from Google’s search-funded demand into its own ad server would recreate the tie the case was about. [3]
Display & Video 360 escapes. The court found that the plaintiffs offered no evidence, let alone economic analysis, connecting Google’s DSP to the tie between AdX and DFP, so the buy-side remedies apply to Google Ads and not to Display & Video 360. [3] If you buy open-web display through Google’s DSP, nothing in this judgment is written about you.
Neither is anything written about price. There is no fee cap and no mandated take rate. What the opinion offers instead is an expectation. It cites the plaintiffs’ own expert’s calculation that eliminating Unified Pricing Rules alone would bring AdX’s take rate from 20% to about 16.6%, comparable to what some rivals charge, and says the provisions together should exert downward pressure on it. [3] That is an estimate from trial, cited to explain a remedy. It is also the closest thing to a number you will get on what a working dollar of display might keep. If you have ever tried to trace the ad tech tax through a supply path, the new winning and losing bid data will help more than any ruling on fees.
The calendar
The dates are where most summaries go vague, so here they are from the documents themselves.
The order gave the parties 30 days to meet, confer, and file one jointly proposed final judgment, with competing versions of any provision they cannot agree on. [1] That lands on October 2, 2026. The final judgment then takes effect 60 days after the court enters it, with one exception: the work of appointing the monitor and forming the technical committee is effective immediately. [3] The court expects the behavioral remedies as a whole to be implemented within 15 months. [3]
The term is six years, which is what Google proposed and less than half the 15 the plaintiffs wanted. [3] A footnote gives the court the authority to extend it if the final judgment has not been fully satisfied by then. [3] And the geography is global. Google argued a US court should not impose a worldwide injunction, and lost: the court held that the markets it found are worldwide, that Google already runs its ad tech products globally, and that a global judgment is easier to administer and to evaluate. [3]
Two regulators, two theories of repair
Europe reached the same stack from a different law and landed somewhere else. On September 5, 2025, the European Commission fined Google €2.95 billion for favoring its own display advertising technology, ordered it to end the self-preferencing and the conflicts of interest along the ad tech supply chain, and said its preliminary view was that only a divestment of part of Google’s services would address those conflicts. [7] The US court has now found divestiture neither realistic nor needed for the markets in its case. A publisher operating on both sides of the Atlantic should plan for the American remedy, because it has a calendar, and keep watching the European one, because it has not finished.
What the American remedy actually changes is leverage. For a decade, a publisher that wanted AdX demand needed DFP, and a publisher running DFP gave AdX advantages no other exchange had. From next year the demand can arrive through a Prebid wrapper or a rival ad server, the data comes with the publisher when it leaves, and the auction has to explain itself one impression at a time. None of that lowers a price on its own. It removes the reason a publisher could not test whether somebody else would pay more. That was the reason the case existed.
Sources
- US District Court, Eastern District of Virginia · United States v. Google LLC, 1:23-cv-108, Order (Dkt. 1857)September 2, 2026. The rejection of the three structural remedies, the 30 days to file a joint proposed final judgment, and the 14-day seal for redactions.
- US Department of Justice · Department of Justice Again Wins Substantial Relief Against GoogleSeptember 16, 2026. The Prebid and rival ad server integrations, data export, the Google Ads bidding rules, and the six-year monitor.
- US District Court, Eastern District of Virginia · United States v. Google LLC, Memorandum Opinion (Dkt. 1858)Signed September 2, 2026. The reasons for rejecting divestiture, the six-year term, the 15-month implementation, the 60-day effective date, the worldwide scope, the Google Ads and Display & Video 360 findings, and the take-rate estimate.
- US District Court, Eastern District of Virginia · United States v. Google LLC, Order unsealing the Memorandum Opinion (Dkt. 1860)September 16, 2026, after the parties advised that no redactions were necessary.
- US Department of Justice · U.S. and Plaintiff States v. Google LLC [2023], case documentsThe plaintiffs’ proposed and revised proposed final judgments, and the April 17, 2025 liability opinion.
- Google · Our remedies proposal in the DOJ ad tech caseMay 6, 2025. Google’s stated intention to appeal the liability ruling and the behavioral remedies it offered.
- European Commission · Commission fines Google €2.95 billion over abusive practices in online advertising technologySeptember 5, 2025. The fine, the order to end self-preferencing and conflicts of interest, and the preliminary view on divestment.
Frequently asked questions
Did the court order Google to sell AdX?
No. In its order of September 2, 2026, the Eastern District of Virginia rejected all three structural remedies the plaintiffs proposed: the divestiture of AdX, the open-sourcing of the final auction logic in DFP, Google’s publisher ad server, and the contingent divestiture of what would remain of DFP. It accepted most of the parties’ behavioral remedies instead, as modified by the court.
What does Google have to build?
Integrations between AdX and Prebid and between DFP and Prebid, and a way for AdX to submit real-time bids to competing publisher ad servers. It also has to let publishers access and export their own DFP and AdX data. The parties’ remedies make AdX winning and losing bid data available to publishers, and Google has agreed to document how DFP picks the ad that serves.
When do the obligations start?
The parties had 30 days from September 2, 2026 to file a jointly proposed final judgment. The court said the final judgment will take effect 60 days after it is entered, except the work to appoint a monitor and form a technical committee, which starts immediately. The opinion expects the behavioral remedies to be in place within 15 months.
How long does the final judgment last?
Six years, the term Google asked for. The plaintiffs sought 15. The opinion adds that if the final judgment has not been fully satisfied within six years, the court has the authority to extend it.
Does the ruling apply outside the United States?
Yes. The court found that the relevant markets are worldwide, that Google runs its ad tech products on a global basis, and that a global judgment is easier to administer and monitor. It concluded that the final judgment will apply beyond the United States and reach globally.
What changes for advertisers?
Google Ads, which the court and the Justice Department call AdWords, may not bid preferentially into AdX or other Google ad tech because Google owns them, and may not bid directly into DFP. Display & Video 360 is outside the buy-side remedies, because the court found no evidence linking it to the conduct at issue. Nothing in the order sets a fee or a take rate.
Will AdX get cheaper?
Not by order. The opinion records that AdX charged a take rate of 20% and that, by the plaintiffs’ expert’s calculation, removing Unified Pricing Rules alone would bring it to about 16.6%, comparable to some rivals. The court cited that estimate to explain why the conduct remedies should put downward pressure on the price. It is not a price the judgment sets.
Does this settle Google’s ad tech case in Europe?
No. The European Commission fined Google €2.95 billion on September 5, 2025 for self-preferencing in ad tech and said its preliminary view was that only a divestment of part of Google’s services would resolve the conflicts of interest. The US court reached the opposite conclusion on divestiture, under a different law, for the markets in its case.
Mikołaj Salecki
Writes about media, tech, and AI business for people who actually run digital. Former agency lead. Skeptic of frameworks that read better than they perform.
