Google will not have to sell AdX business, but it will have to make changes

Following a prior court battle, a judge has now ruled that Google won’t have to sell off its AdX (ad exchange) business after all, and will instead have to make some undisclosed behavioral changes.

As reported by Bloomberg and The New York Times, Google will not have to sell off its AdX business. Judge Leonie Brinkema rejected the DOJ’s move to force the sale of that business which would have also make the auction logic behind ad placements public information.

While Google won’t have to sell off the business or reveal auction logic, the Judge did propose “behavioral changes.”

We’ll know more in 14 days when the decision is unsealed, as both Google and the DOJ will be able to use that time to make any needed redactions.

Still, it’s a major victory on Google’s part. The 2025 ruling still finds Google guilty of breaking the law to protect a monopoly on advertising, but as ArsTechnica points out, the sale of AdX could have made an impact in the rest of Google’s advertising business even if the ad exchange in particular isn’t the biggest part of that business.