Apr 18, 2025

The other antitrust shoe finally dropped on Google: Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled the company “willfully engaged in anticompetitive acts” to control the ad server and ad exchange markets.

Google’s defense in this case was no better than the one in the search monopoly lawsuit it also lost. Facts are indeed pesky things — especially when proven by emails, PowerPoint presentations and plain old math.

The company will appeal the case, of course. Even so, the ruling will upend digital advertising in a good way. Prices will decrease and effectiveness will likely increase.

This judgment is much worse for Google than the search ruling. Last year, ad revenue brought in $265 billion. Total revenue was $348 billion. Maybe it’s time to reconsider spending hundreds of billions on Gemini, a product that will never turn a profit.

Constantine von Hoffman
Managing Editor

B2B marketing

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MarTech research

Surveys and research reports to make you a more-informed marketer

NEW! Get profiles of 14 email marketing platforms and more in the 2025 MarTech Intelligence Report, Email Marketing Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide.
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What they're saying

“Marketing leaders must look beyond surface-level metrics like product adoption or Net Promoter Scores (NPS) to lead this shift. Instead, they need to focus on insights that help customers measure success in terms of business impact.” – Philip Black in Driving customer growth with value-based B2B marketing.
“Brands should put far less stock in what happened and shift more energy into understanding if it mattered. Ads that get attribution credit but only drive sales, revenue or leads that were going to happen anyway aren’t worth running.” – Tom Leonard in How attribution masks what’s actually driving growth.