The End of Google’s Ad Monopoly?
Alphabet finds itself in the dock again, and this time the stakes are higher than a slap-on-the-wrist fine.
The U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission have finally admitted what independent publishers and smaller ad tech firms have been saying for decades: Google built an illegal monopoly over online advertising, and it did so by rigging the infrastructure of the web itself.
The numbers tell the story.
In Europe, regulators just hit Google with a €2.95 billion fine and gave the company sixty days to propose a fix. If it doesn’t, the commission will push for a breakup order, forcing Google to divest the machinery it uses to choke competition.
Meanwhile, in Virginia, Judge Leonie Brinkema already found Google’s ad tech monopoly illegal. She will now choose the legal medicine: behavioral remedies, structural separation, or both.
These cases may determine whether one private company gets to decide how billions of dollars in ad spending are allocated, who gets heard, and who gets buried.
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Google’s dominance is neither a happy accident nor the fruit of innovation. It is the predictable outcome of rent-seekers creating a market bottleneck, setting up a toll booth at the entrance, and taking a cut of all the traffic that goes through.
PubMatic CEO Rajeev Goel put it plainly when his company filed its own lawsuit: “Every time we adapted or innovated, Google found new ways to stack the deck.” That story should sound a wake-up call that the rules of the game were never fair.
The sad part is, we’ve been here before.
Back in the 90s, Microsoft was accused of tying Internet Explorer to Windows. AT&T once strangled the telecom market until antitrust regulators forced a breakup.
The difference is that Google’s reach doesn’t just warp one industry. It affects every advertiser and every web site that relies on ad revenue to survive.
And the judge is right. Behavioral fixes like requiring more transparent auctions or loosening contract terms won’t restore competition. They’ll only give Google’s lawyers new rulebooks to game. The DOJ and the European Commission are well aware of that fact, which is why they’re openly discussing structural separation.
What does that mean? In plain English, Google may be forced to sell off its ad exchange and ad server.
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That remedy is the only real solution. Otherwise, the monopoly remains intact, shielded by complexity and with the advantage of time. The fines are laughable compared to the profits Alphabet extracts. Only a breakup will realign incentives effectively.
In all honestly, I didn’t expect regulatory action against a tech giant to get this far. Of course, regulators don’t operate in a vacuum. Hours after Brussels issued its fine, Donald Trump threatened tariffs, accusing the EU of unfairly targeting American business. That threat won’t go away no matter who sits in the White House. Antitrust suits have become proxies for trade war. If Europe pushes too hard, Washington might retaliate. If regulators back down, they’ll signal that law enforcement is negotiable when a powerful multinational objects.
According to Carl Schmitt, the sovereign creates the exception. So the main outcome of world governments’ tug-of-war over Google may be that we definitively find out who rules over us.
Cori Crider of the Future of Tech Institute laid out the stakes: “If Europeans suddenly appear to be sacrificing law enforcement on the trade table, we’re never going to be asked to do it just once. We will be asked to do it again and again.”
That is why the Google case has far greater import than advertising. It will reveal if institutions have the will to enforce their own laws, or if Big Tech gets to write its own exemptions.
And the real harm is the invisible tax on the internet. Publishers bleed revenue. Advertisers pay inflated rates. Fraud flourishes in opaque systems. And ordinary users find themselves funneled into a system designed not to inform or entertain, but to extract maximum profit while centralizing control.
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When the apparatus that decides who gets heard is captured by one company, you have a civilizational hazard. Monopoly over communication channels is monopoly over culture.
Even the Gen Y Siskel and Ebert Jay Bauman and Mike Stoklasa felt compelled to break character and complain about the arbitrary, intrusive, and ever-mutating hoops creators must jump through to maintain their channels on Alphabet subsidiary YouTube. Hear them out:
The part about Google demanding users’ state-issued ID is especially cynical and odious. Being a publisher, I work with copyright every day. What it boils down to is that under international agreements, you own the material you generate; it could be a short story, a song, or even your personal data. If the DOJ or the European Commission really wanted to put the screws to Google, they’d simply enforce existing IP law. Because Google and every other tech giant actually makes its trillions by selling the personal data it de facto steals from its users, making them pay fair market fees or royalties for that data would bankrupt Big Tech overnight.
Regardless, we must work with the case we have. By early November, the Commission will decide whether to accept Google’s fix or order a breakup. The US case may take longer, as the DOJ must convince a judge. Either way, regulators on both sides of the Atlantic see that fines and wrist-slaps don’t work. Whether they have the will to follow through on a breakup is another question. Appeals will drag out the process for years. Geopolitics may intervene. Yet the cracks in Google’s data fortress are showing.
The lesson for creators, publishers, and advertisers is simple: Never mistake access for independence. The web you see is not the web as it is. Behind every bid, click, and impression lies a machine built to help the house win.
But that machine may yet be dismantled. The fact that governments are even talking about breaking up Google may signal a shift in the balance of power.
Still, don’t count on deliverance from Caesar. Build your own distribution. Cultivate direct ties with your audience. Treat Big Tech’s platforms as rented rooms, not sovereign soil.
Until the giants really are toppled, assume the game is rigged, and play accordingly.
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Brian Niemeier is a best-selling novelist, editor, and Dragon Award winner with over a decade in newpub. For direct, in-person writing and editing insights, join his Patreon.