The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division secured substantial relief against Google in two separate monopolization cases, winning court-ordered remedies in its search and advertising technology cases that together aim to pry open markets the company has unlawfully dominated for more than a decade.

In United States et al. v. Google, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered significant remedies in the search monopolization case, while the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ordered behavioral relief in the ad tech case, including requiring close integration between Google’s products and those offered by rivals, including open-source solutions offered by Prebid.

“The Court’s ruling in the Google ad tech case marks a significant victory for this Department’s efforts to protect and restore competition,” said Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. “We will continue to review the opinion to consider the Department’s options. Under President Trump’s and Attorney General Blanche’s leadership, we will never cease fighting for fair competition.”

Search Case Remedies

In the search case, the court prohibited Google from entering or maintaining exclusive contracts relating to the distribution of Google Search, Chrome, Google Assistant, and the Gemini app. The court ordered Google to make certain search index and user-interaction data available to rivals and potential rivals, and ordered Google to offer search and search text ads syndication services to enable competitors to compete.

The court’s ruling recognizes the need for remedies to pry open the market for general search services, which has been frozen in place for over a decade. The ruling also recognizes the need to prevent Google from using the same anticompetitive tactics for its GenAI products as it used to monopolize the search market, and the remedies will reach GenAI technologies and companies.

“This decision marks an important step forward in the Department of Justice’s ongoing fight to protect American consumers. Under President Trump’s leadership, we will continue our legal efforts to hold companies accountable for monopolistic practices,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi.

“The first Trump administration sued Google to restore competition for millions of Americans subjected to Google’s monopoly abuses. Today, the second Trump administration has won a remedy to do just that,” said Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “We will continue to review the opinion to consider the Department’s options and next steps regarding seeking additional relief.”

Under the remedies ordered, Google will be barred from entering or maintaining exclusive contracts relating to the distribution of Google Search, Chrome, Google Assistant, and the Gemini app. Google cannot enter or maintain agreements that condition the licensing of any Google application on the distribution, preloading, or placement of Google Search, Chrome, Google Assistant, or the Gemini app anywhere on a device; condition the receipt of revenue share payments for the placement of one Google application on the placement of another; condition the receipt of revenue share payments on maintaining Google Search, Chrome, Google Assistant, or the Gemini app on any device, browser, or search access point for more than one year; or prohibit any partner from simultaneously distributing any other general search engine, browser, or GenAI product.

In addition, Google must make certain search index and user-interaction data available to certain competitors and offer certain competitors search and search text ads syndication services, enabling rivals to deliver high-quality search results and ads and compete with Google as they develop their own capacity.

For years, Google accounted for approximately 90 percent of all search queries in the United States, and Google used anticompetitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in search and search advertising. Google entered into a series of exclusionary agreements that collectively locked up the primary avenues through which users access online search, requiring that Google be the preset default general search engine on billions of mobile devices and computers and, in many cases, prohibiting preinstallation of a competitor.

The Department of Justice and the states proved that Google broke the law over the course of a bench trial that started in September 2023 and lasted nine weeks. In August 2024, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia released a 277-page opinion concluding that “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly” in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. The decision followed a 15-day remedies trial in May 2025.

The Department’s original filing in October 2020 was joined by eleven State Attorneys General. Additional states filed a related action as the case progressed, and ultimately, the United States was joined in pursuing the remedies ordered by 49 states, two territories, and the District of Columbia.

Ad Tech Case Remedies

In the ad tech case, the court ordered significant behavioral relief, including requiring close integration between Google’s products and products offered by rivals, including the open-source solutions offered by Prebid. The court ordered further relief that will help pry open these markets to competition.

As a direct result of the work of the Department’s trial team, Google’s executives repeatedly offered new pledges of injunctive relief while on the stand during the remedies trial. This extended after the trial, when Google offered a further-revised proposed final judgment with additional concessions. For example, Google committed that AdWords, its advertiser tool, would not engage in discriminatory bidding to the detriment of both advertisers and publishers. Because of the Department’s efforts during the remedies phase, Google also agreed to broaden the categories of advertising inventory covered by the final judgment, disclose how its black-box advertising auctions work, and provide new technical support and data to its competitors and customers.

The court’s decision recognizes that it must seek to terminate Google’s monopolies, unfetter the markets from Google’s anticompetitive conduct, ensure that there remain no practices likely to result in monopolization, and deny Google the fruit of its unlawful actions: its monopoly power, scale, and profits. In so holding, the court rejected Google’s argument that the termination of monopolies is not a proper objective for monopolization cases. The court confirmed the Department’s position that it is not enough to order Google to cease its prior anticompetitive behavior.

The court imposed interoperability and data-sharing requirements, anti-discrimination remedies, and prohibitions on Google’s self-preferencing bidding behavior. The ruling underscores the need for antitrust remedies to be forward-looking and comprehensive, and it reiterates that remedies can include conditions on products beyond the monopolized product markets.

In addition to prohibiting Google’s past anticompetitive conduct, the court ordered the following relief:

Required Integrations with Prebid and Competing Publisher Ad Servers. The court recognized the importance of injecting new competition and breaking Google’s unlawful tie between AdX and DFP. Google must create and support integrations between AdX and Prebid, and DFP and Prebid. Prebid is an open-source industry standard for real-time bidding. In addition, AdX will be required to submit real-time bids to other publisher ad servers. These integrations will give publishers more control over the sale of their inventory and offer access to important, unique demand without publishers being forced to use both DFP and AdX.

Data Sharing. Google will be required to allow publishers to access and export their own data from DFP and AdX, which will make it easier for publishers to switch ad tech providers.

AdWords Must Bid in Non-Discriminatory Fashion. The court rejected Google’s arguments that remedies could not touch AdWords, Google’s “golden goose,” and ordered that AdWords cannot bid preferentially into AdX or other Google ad tech tools because of Google’s ownership of those tools. AdWords also cannot bid directly into DFP.

Monitor. A monitor will be put in place to facilitate enforcement of Google’s compliance with the Final Judgment. Google will be subject to the oversight of this monitor and a technical committee for six years, the length of the Final Judgment.

“Today the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice prevailed in its second monopolization case against Google,” the Department said. In the ad tech liability ruling, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held that Google violated antitrust law by monopolizing open-web digital advertising markets. According to the Court, Google “harmed Google’s publishing customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web.”

“This is a landmark victory in the ongoing fight to stop Google from monopolizing the digital public square,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “This Department of Justice will continue taking bold legal action to protect the American people from encroachments on free speech and free markets by tech companies.”

“The Court’s ruling is clear: Google is a monopolist and has abused its monopoly power,” said Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater. “Google’s unlawful dominance allows them to censor and even deplatform American voices. And at the same time, Google destroyed and hid information that exposed its illegal conduct. Today’s opinion confirms Google’s controlling hand over online advertising and, increasingly, the internet itself.”

The ad tech decision followed a 15-day trial in September 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. In January 2023, the Justice Department, along with Attorneys General of several states and the Commonwealth of Virginia, filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Google for monopolizing key digital advertising technologies, referred to as the “ad tech stack,” that website publishers depend on to buy and sell ads that reach millions of customers. As alleged in the complaint, through a series of acquisitions and anticompetitive auction manipulation, Google subverted competition for over 15 years. As a result of Google’s anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct, its ad tech competitors were neutralized or eliminated.

The Department said it continues to review the courts’ opinions and will determine appropriate next steps to ensure that competition is restored to these markets that Google has unlawfully dominated for far too long.