No Breakup

A US federal judge on Wednesday refused to force Google to sell a division of its digital advertising business, rejecting the government's push to break up part of the company's ad empire. US District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema opted instead for a set of rules governing how Google must operate in the ad market.

The decision is the second time in recent years that a federal judge has declined to dismantle a piece of Google's business, after a judge last year refused to force the sale of its Chrome browser in a separate monopoly case over online search. "We're very pleased the Court rejected the DOJ's proposal to break apart tools that help small businesses reach new customers and grow," Google's vice president of regulatory affairs Lee-Anne Mulholland said in a statement.

Opinion sealed for 14 days

The reasoning behind the decision was not immediately made public. Brinkema filed her opinion under seal for 14 days, leaving the details of how Google must change its ad business unknown for now. She gave the two sides 30 days to submit a joint proposed final judgment.

The case focused on Google's ad tech "stack", the suite of tools that website publishers use to sell ads and advertisers use to buy them. Brinkema ruled last year that Google had willfully monopolized both the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets. According to the Department of Justice, Google once compared this arrangement to Goldman Sachs owning the New York Stock Exchange. Prosecutors had sought the sale of Google's ad auction site AdX and the open-sourcing of critical auction technology.