Google wins key antitrust battle, avoids ad business split

A federal judge on Wednesday rejected the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) request to break up Google’s (GOOG.O) online advertising business. The ruling is historic, effectively putting an end to nearly 20 years of antitrust risks for Alphabet’s Google. As early as the Obama administration, U.S. government enforcers had considered filing a monopolization lawsuit against Google. However, judges have long been strongly resistant to breaking up companies, viewing such remedies as overly radical, and Wednesday’s ruling is the latest example of this. U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema took a more restrained approach to determining how to penalize Google. Last year, she ruled that Google had illegally monopolized the complex online advertising market for website ads. The DOJ argued that forcing Google to sell its ad exchange was the only way to curb its market dominance and open the market to new competitors. Brinkema disagreed. In a two-page ruling order, she adopted alternative measures to limit Google’s ability to control publishers’ use of its ad technology.