“In a Big Win, Google Avoids a Breakup of Its Ad Tech Business” in The New York Times by By David McCabe and Tripp Mickle on Sept. 2, 2026
Earlier in my life, I worked in AT&T Global Business after the AT&T breakup (on inside wire as part of broadband deployment). I was interested in how this case might affect Google today. Below are a few quotes:
“A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Google must make changes to address its advertising technology monopoly but would not need to break up that business.”
These quotes provide more context:
“The government filed the ad tech lawsuit — U.S. et al. v. Google — in 2023 over an intricate network of programs that sell ad space around the web, like on a news site or a recipes page.”
“Google’s ad tech business brought in $30 billion last year, or about 8 percent of the revenue for its parent company, Alphabet. Its ad tech revenue has declined for 16 straight quarters, and analysts estimate it accounts for less than 1 percent of the company’s profit. As Google focuses more on its own ads and A.I.-generated search summaries, ad tech will become even less relevant, said Richard Kramer, senior analyst at the investment advisory firm Arete Research.”
“Despite two federal court rulings in major government lawsuits declaring the tech giant a monopolist — the other in search — judges have not ordered significant structural changes to its $4.1 trillion business.”
[My blog contains links to relevant readings in the style of an annotated bibliography where I write a short note and link out to interesting articles. I generally refrain from providing my opinion as these are very complex topics that require depth in discussion.]