Judge Leonie Brinkema’s 106-page Memorandum Opinion in Google’s ad tech antitrust case became public on September 16, two weeks after she signed and filed it under seal on September 2. In a joint notice filed the same day, Google and the plaintiffs told the court that none of them believed any redactions were necessary, and the judge ordered the opinion unsealed. It answers the question our report on the two-page September 2 order left open: which of the parties’ proposed fixes survived, and with what modifications.
What Did the Unsealed Google Ad Tech Remedies Opinion Order?
The opinion rejects all three structural remedies the plaintiffs sought: divestiture of AdX, open-sourcing DFP’s final auction logic, and a contingent divestiture of the rest of DFP. The court writes that it “finds that structural remedies are neither realistic nor needed.” In their place it accepts most of the behavioral remedies the two sides had proposed, as modified by the court: Prebid interoperability for AdX and DFP, AdX bidding into rival publisher ad servers, publisher-facing data sharing, limits on AdWords, and provision for a Monitor still to be appointed, all folded into a six-year, worldwide Final Judgment that takes effect 60 days after it is entered.
The List Was Right. On Disputed Details, Google Mostly Prevailed.
Our report on the September 2 order noted that the widely cited fixes, real-time bid access, the end of Unified Pricing Rules, a ban on First Look and Last Look, were proposals from the parties’ filings, not text from the order. The opinion confirms the list. What it settles is whose position the court took where the two sides diverged, and there it leans toward Google on most of the disputed points.
The plaintiffs, the Justice Department and a coalition of states, won on AdWords, which the decree covers despite Google’s objection, and on a ban on preferential routing. The court also adopted two of their proposals that Google did not contest: an Internal Compliance Officer, with narrower duties than they asked for, and compliance affidavits with inspection rights. Two points went against Google without being plaintiffs’ wins as such: the court made the decree worldwide, rejecting Google’s request to keep it US-only, and set the start at 60 days after entry, following the Google Search case, instead of Google’s 120 days (the plaintiffs had asked for effect on entry). Google won on duration and detail: a six-year term instead of the plaintiffs’ proposed 15, documentation and a per-ad data file instead of open-sourcing DFP’s auction logic, data sharing confined to open-web display with no video or in-app formats, a narrower AdWords direct-bidding ban that still allows a Prebid integration, DV360 left untouched, a 45-day Monitor work plan instead of 30, quarterly Monitor reports that go to Google as well as the plaintiffs, and a “broad right to object” to Monitor actions.
| Remedy | Outcome | Whose version won |
|---|---|---|
| AdX divestiture | Rejected | Plaintiffs proposed it |
| Open-sourcing DFP’s final auction logic | Rejected | Plaintiffs proposed it |
| Contingent divestiture of DFP Remainder | Rejected | Plaintiffs proposed it |
| AdX-Prebid and DFP-Prebid interoperability | Adopted | Both proposed it; the “functionally equivalent” standard is the plaintiffs’ proposed-judgment wording |
| AdX bidding into rival publisher ad servers | Adopted; deadline unresolved | Both proposed it; the parties must negotiate timing |
| Data sharing (DFP data plus AdX bid data) | Adopted; scope narrowed | Google’s open-web-display-only scope; plaintiffs’ all-format version rejected |
| DFP technical documentation plus per-ad data file | Adopted | Google’s proposal |
| No reimplementing First Look/Last Look; UPR deprecation | Adopted | Both proposed it |
| Non-discrimination on data signals, latency and routing | Adopted; wording to be redrafted | Plaintiffs’ preferential-routing ban adopted; their broader text rejected as too indefinite |
| AdWords direct-bidding ban | Adopted | Google’s narrower version (DFP barred, Prebid allowed) |
| AdWords anti-favoring rule, with ROI exception | Adopted | Both proposed it |
| Google first-party data used non-discriminatorily | Adopted | Both proposed a version; the court called Google’s objection premature; both agreed on privacy exceptions |
| DV360 restrictions | Rejected | Plaintiffs requested them |
| Monitor and three-member Technical Committee | Adopted | Both proposed it; the 45-day work plan and quarterly dual-party reports are Google’s version |
| Internal Compliance Officer | Adopted; duties narrowed | Plaintiffs’ proposal, narrowed by the court |
| Escrow of 50% of AdX and DFP net revenue | Rejected | Plaintiffs proposed it |
| Term | Six years | Google’s proposal (plaintiffs asked for 15) |
| Geographic scope | Worldwide | The court’s ruling; Google’s request to limit it to the US was rejected |
| Effective date | 60 days after entry | The court’s own choice, following Google Search (plaintiffs asked for effect on entry, Google for 120 days) |
What Publishers on Google Ad Manager Get, and When
None of this changes an account today. What it sets up is a specific build list, only partly dated, once a Final Judgment exists.
Prebid becomes a real final-auction path. Google must build an API from AdX to Prebid covering “all indirect open-web display ad inventory,” and an API plus a server-to-server connection from DFP to Prebid that also covers programmatic direct demand, so the auction can run inside Prebid, apart from the last comparison against the publisher’s direct deals, which stays in the ad server. Google has committed to 12 to 15 months for the DFP side, and the court defers to Google’s number wherever it is shorter than the plaintiffs’ proposal. Google also agreed to build tools letting publishers “make a mutually exclusive choice to call AdX either from Prebid or directly from DFP.”
Separately, AdX has to submit bids to rival publisher ad servers “in the same manner” it “currently submits real-time bids to DFP,” across all indirect demand. That deadline is still open: the plaintiffs proposed six months, Google twelve, and the opinion leaves the number to the parties to negotiate.
On pricing, Google’s own proposal, which the court describes as preventing circumvention, would let publishers “set different floor prices across multiple buying tools and ad exchanges” and would bar a DFP fee discount in exchange for uniform prices across all demand sources. Google may not reimplement First Look or Last Look, and the opinion requires Google to “deprecate and not reimplement” Unified Pricing Rules in DFP “for all indirect transaction types.” That is an instruction for the Final Judgment.
On data, Google must share DFP historical and configuration data plus “ongoing AdX bid data,” including “all winning and losing bid data for each auction in AdX,” exportable to rival ad servers through an API. The scope stops at open-web display; the plaintiffs’ request to cover video and in-app formats was rejected as overly broad. Google also has to hand publishers technical documentation and a data file showing, for every ad served, the candidate prices and any price adjustments behind DFP’s final selection. The court called this Google-drafted proposal reasonable, but its format and how often it is delivered are still unset. The court told the parties to meet and confer on those parameters, with the Monitor and Technical Committee, once appointed, as a mechanism to help.
What Advertisers on AdWords Get
AdWords may not build a direct bidding integration into DFP, the version of the ban the court adopted over the plaintiffs’ broader request that AdWords deal with DFP “only through an Ad Exchange.” A direct AdWords-to-Prebid integration stays open. AdWords also can’t favor Google-owned or Google-affiliated ad tech tools when bidding on indirect open-web display, with one carve-out: it may still prioritize AdX where that serves advertiser return on investment, and the parties still have to define which factors qualify. Google’s use of first-party data for that bidding has to be non-discriminatory, a rule the court says “merely puts in writing the status quo,” since Google testified it does not currently use that data to target open-web display. DV360 sits outside all of this; the court found the plaintiffs “failed to offer any evidence, let alone economic analysis” tying the demand-side platform to the conduct at issue.
Calendar
- September 2, 2026: Order entered on the public docket; Memorandum Opinion signed and filed under seal.
- September 16, 2026: Joint notice that no party believes redactions are necessary; the court orders the opinion unsealed.
- By about October 2, 2026: Joint proposed Final Judgment due, 30 days after the September 2 order; unresolved provisions go in as both sides’ competing text.
- Entry of the Final Judgment: no date yet.
- +60 days after entry: Final Judgment takes effect, except that work to appoint the Monitor and form the Technical Committee starts immediately.
- Within 90 days after the effective date: the parties’ first status report to the court.
- 12 to 15 months: Google’s committed window for DFP-to-Prebid interoperability.
- Six years: term of the Final Judgment, extendable by the court.
What’s Still Not Decided
- The exact injunction wording; the parties must file one joint text, with competing versions of any provision they cannot agree on.
- The deadline for AdX’s interoperability with rival publisher ad servers, six months versus twelve.
- The format and delivery frequency of the DFP per-ad data file.
- The specific factors that qualify for AdWords’ advertiser-ROI exception.
- The non-discrimination provision’s exact language, including its privacy carve-outs.
- Which side proposes the Monitor’s slate of three candidates and which side selects from it.
- The Internal Compliance Officer’s specific responsibilities, still to be drafted.
Part of the court’s own case against a breakup was timing: a divestiture would take multiple years “without accounting for the likelihood of an appeal,” while, citing Google’s closing argument, “every behavioral remedy would be fully in effect within 15 months.” The next fixed point is the joint proposed Final Judgment due around October 2, when any provisions the parties still dispute go before the court as competing versions. The FTC lawsuit that accuses Amazon of adding a hidden surcharge to its advertised second-price auction remains another open ad-auction transparency fight worth tracking, in a different court entirely. The obligations landing on Google Ad Manager here arrive on a product Google has recently been adding to, including the Gemini-based Ask Ad Manager agent it launched in beta for publisher ad-ops.
Primary source: the unsealed Memorandum Opinion (ECF 1858, E.D. Va.). Trade confirmation: AdExchanger’s TL;DR.
