US court ruling aggravates Brussels’ Google problem

BRUSSELS — How do you solve a monopoly like Google’s? It’s a question that has beset Brussels for the past year, ever since the European Commission fined the search giant €2.95 billion for monopolizing the vast market for digital advertising. A few months earlier, in April 2025, a U.S. judge had also found Google guilty in a lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice (DoJ), as parallel investigations on both sides of the Atlantic finally ran their course. On Wednesday, however, the same U.S. judge made the European Commission’s life a lot more difficult. In a ruling from Washington’s own attempt to break up Google, Judge Leonie Brinkema, of the Federal District of Eastern Virginia, rejected the DoJ’s request for a forced divestiture of parts of its business. That decision leaves the EU alone, at a time of transatlantic discord, in advocating that the online advertising giant break itself up. “It’s obvious that the European Commission has been holding out for a decision in the parallel U.S. case, even if it has the authority to act independently and should have done so long ago,” Max von Thun, Europe director at the Open Markets Institute non-profit, told POLITICO. One year after the Commission issued its fine, both the complainants who brought the case, and the civil society groups who see this as a test of the EU’s nerve in confronting Big Tech, fear the EU executive may find itself with limited options to loosen Google’s stranglehold on the online advertising ecosystem. “As long as Google maintains the incentive and the means, they have an endless number of paths to achieve comparable anti-competitive goals,” said Arielle Garcia, CEO of Check My Ads, a U.S.-based watchdog, adding that while a Europe-only remedy might be technically possible, its effect would be minimal. In her order, Brinkema said she didn’t see a structural divestment of part of Google’s business as necessary to remedy the finding of liability against the company. Last September, in a parallel decision, the Commission said a divestment appeared to be the only way to resolve Google’s inherent conflict of interest. Making the best of it Among those who brought the case, the mood is resigned. Several people involved in the complaint said privately that they no longer see a viable way to carve out and sell part of a U.S. company’s business within Europe alone, and are now pushing for the strongest measures the Commission can realistically deliver. “There was such an expectation that breakup was going to change the world. It was never going to change the world. The key critical issue is what you do about non-discrimination,” said Tim Cowen, a partner at Preiskel & Co., who represents a complainant in the case. The obstacle to a breakup is as much structural as it is political. Google’s buying tools, selling tools and the exchange between them run as one global system. A sale ordered by Brussels would apply on one side of the Atlantic, in a market where the largest advertisers and publishers don’t stop at the EU’s borders. The Commission recognizes some of those difficulties. Structural remedies in cases where parties have already completed investment activities “are of course very difficult and can be politically contested,” said DG Competition’s Director General Anthony Whelan at a conference in Florence on Friday. “Irrespective of the context of transatlantic relations, of course, this is a difficult case,” Whelan added. The EU executive is still assessing Google’s compliance plan, having granted the firm an extension within the deadline for assessing its proposal back in March. The extension was meant to give the Commission time to analyze Google’s plan “in depth” and take a view on whether it is compliant, said Ricardo Cardoso, a spokesperson for the EU executive. Google submitted the plan in November 2025, proposing changes to how its tools work rather than a sale. Ribera called the offer serious as the Commission put it to industry for comment. The T