US Judge Rules Google Must Keep Ad Exchange After Antitrust Loss

A federal judge in Washington has denied the Department of Justice’s request that Google sell its online advertising exchange, AdX, following the company’s 2025 antitrust defeat. While the court found that Google had illegally locked publishers into using its exchange, it did not agree that the company broke the law over the tools available to advertisers. The DOJ had argued that divesting AdX would level the playing field for competitors, but the judge concluded that the remedy would be too limited to affect Google’s broader ad business. The ruling leaves AdX, a small but strategically important part of Google’s revenue, intact and signals that the DOJ’s ability to force structural changes in Big Tech may be constrained.