- Date
- September 16, 2026
- Kind
- Regulatory change
- Significance
- High
On September 16, 2026, the US Department of Justice announced that the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia had ordered relief in United States et al. v. Google LLC, its ad tech monopolization case. The court had found in April 2025 that Google violated antitrust law by monopolizing open-web digital advertising markets.
The relief, as the Department describes it
- Google must build and support integrations between its ad exchange (AdX) and Prebid, and between its publisher ad server (DFP) and Prebid, and AdX must submit real-time bids to other publisher ad servers.
- Publishers must be able to access and export their own data from DFP and AdX.
- Google’s AdWords may not bid preferentially into AdX or other Google ad tech tools, and may not bid directly into DFP.
- A monitor and a technical committee will oversee compliance for six years, the length of the final judgment.
Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. called the ruling “a significant victory” and said the Department would continue to review the opinion “to consider the Department’s options”. The Department’s page does not say whether the court ordered a divestiture of AdX, and does not mention an appeal.
The background
The Department’s April 17, 2025 release said the court found that Google “harmed Google’s publishing customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web.”
Why it matters
For publishers, the practical question is how soon they get a real alternative to Google's ad server and exchange stack, and for buyers it is how Google Ads routes bids. The detail that decides this is timing, which the court left to a final judgment that had not yet been signed.
What happened next
PPC Land reported on October 6, 2026, citing AdExchanger, that the Department and Google lodged rival proposed final judgments: the Department wants AdX opened to Prebid within six months and Google asks for twelve, with a further 24 months for the international rollout. The report says nothing was signed and no ruling on them had been reported. We did not review the filings themselves.
Sources
- US Department of Justice: Department of Justice again wins substantial relief against Google (opens in a new tab)
- US Department of Justice: Department of Justice prevails in landmark antitrust case against Google (opens in a new tab)
- PPC Land: DOJ wants AdX open to Prebid in six months, Google asks for twelve (opens in a new tab)