DOJ Wants to Force Google to Sell Its Ad Business

The Department of Justice is continuing its efforts to break up Google, this time asking a judge to force the company to sell its ad business.

Google has lost two antitrust cases in the last year, with two different judges ruling the company has an illegal monopoly in the search and online advertising space. The DOJ is already pushing for Google to be forced to sell off Chrome in its first case, and is now pushing for the company to be forced to divest itself of its advertising business in the second case.

“We have a defendant who has found ways to defy” the law, DOJ lawyer Julia Tarver Wood told the court, via The Guardian. Leaving a recidivist monopolist” intact is not a valid option, she argued.

“Behavioral remedies are not sufficient because you can’t prevent Google from finding a new way to dominate,” Tarver Wood added.

For its part, Google is trying to convince the court that the company can comply with any non-breakup remedies, including sharing data with advertisers and publishers. The company is even willing to submit to monitoring in an effort to assuage concerns regarding its compliance.

With two antitrust losses and a concentrated effort by the DOJ to break up one of the world’s largest companies, 2025 is set to be a pivotal year for Google, as well as the search and online advertising markets in general.