On September 2, 2026 Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia entered Document 1857 in United States of America et al. v. Google LLC, case 1:23-cv-108 (LMB/JFA). It is two pages long. It rejects the divestiture of AdX, the open-sourcing of DFP’s final auction logic and the contingent divestiture of what the filings call DFP Remainder. It accepts most of the parties’ proposed behavioural remedies, as modified by the court. Everything else is in a memorandum opinion filed under seal.
That makes this a different kind of post from the coverage. The coverage described what Google must now do. The order does not. It sets two deadlines, one for redactions and one for a joint final judgment, and until those pass, no obligation on Google has been published by the court. Publishers and advertisers reading the headlines should know exactly which parts are known and which are inferred, because their contracts will be renegotiated on the difference.
- 01All three structural remedies are rejected, in the order's own capitals.Divestiture of AdX, open-sourcing DFP's final auction logic and a contingent divestiture of DFP Remainder are, in the order's words, rejected. Google keeps the exchange and the ad server.
- 02The behavioural remedies exist only in a sealed opinion.The order accepts most of the parties' proposed behavioural remedies as modified by the court. It does not list them. Which survived, and how they were changed, is not public.
- 03Two clocks started on September 2.Fourteen days for the parties to move for redactions, after which the opinion unseals if none are requested. Thirty days for one jointly proposed final judgment, with any unresolved provision shown in both versions.
- 04No implementation date, trustee or duration exists yet.Both sides proposed monitoring periods and timelines. The order adopts none by name. Anything specific in the coverage is a proposal or a reading of the sealed opinion, not the court's public text.
01 — The documentWhat the two pages say.
The order is on the public docket and in the RECAP archive maintained by the Free Law Project, where we read it. Its operative text is four ordered paragraphs and one footnote, and it can be summarised without interpretation.
| Paragraph | What it orders | What it leaves open |
|---|---|---|
| Structural remedies | The plaintiffs’ proposals for divestiture of AdX, the open-sourcing of DFP’s final auction logic and the contingent divestiture of DFP Remainder “be and are REJECTED” | Nothing. This part is final and public |
| Behavioural remedies | “Most of the parties’ proposed behavioral remedies, as modified by this Court, be and are ACCEPTED” | Which remedies, which party’s version, and every modification. All of it is in the sealed opinion |
| Final judgment | Within 30 days the parties meet, confer and file one jointly proposed final judgment reflecting the opinion’s decisions and resolving remaining disputes. A Word version goes directly to chambers | Any provision still disputed appears in both versions, labelled by proponent, with no argument attached. The court may call for further briefing or oral argument |
| The sealed opinion | Sealed for 14 days because sealed material was referenced at trial. Within 14 days the parties move for any redactions, which the order says must be minimal and justified | If no redactions are requested, the opinion unseals. If redactions are requested and found meritorious, it stays sealed and a redacted version is filed publicly |
Three words carry the whole outcome. “Most” means some proposed behavioural remedies were not accepted, and the order does not say which. “Modified” means the accepted ones do not read as either party drafted them. “Contingent” describes the third structural remedy the government sought, a divestiture of the remaining ad server if competition had not returned, and it was rejected along with the other two.
02 — The datesThe two clocks.
Both deadlines run from the date of the order. Counting from September 2, the redaction deadline falls around September 16 and the joint final judgment around October 2, 2026. The court’s own counting rules govern the exact days, so treat both as approximate until a filing confirms them.
Redactions, then the opinion
One joint final judgment
The second clock is the one publishers should watch. Until the joint proposed final judgment is filed, and until the court enters a final judgment after it, there is no operative obligation on Google. The redacted opinion will explain the court’s reasoning and name the remedies it accepted; the final judgment will turn them into enforceable terms with dates and a monitoring arrangement, if any.
03 — The proposalsWhat was asked for.
The order accepts most of what the parties proposed. The proposals are public; the selection is not. The table lists what each side put before the court, as recorded in trade coverage of the November 2025 filings, and it is a menu, not a verdict. Any item here may have been accepted, modified or dropped.
| Proposal | Government | Status after the order | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Divest AdX | Within 12 months | Opposed | Rejected |
| Open-source DFP’s final auction logic | Within 12 months under a neutral administrator | Opposed | Rejected |
| Contingent divestiture of the remaining ad server | Triggered at three years if competition had not returned | Opposed | Rejected |
| Real-time AdX bids to rival ad servers | Part of a ten-year behavioural package; not itemised in our source | Offered | Unknown |
| Remove unified pricing rules | Same package; not itemised | Offered | Unknown |
| No first look or last look | Same package; not itemised | Offered as a commitment not to rebuild | Unknown |
| Duration and monitoring | Ten years of restrictions; a six-year trustee with source code access; an escrow fund | Six years of monitoring, behaviour only | Unknown |
Where the two sides overlapped, the odds that a provision survived are obviously better, and the day’s reporting treated the shared items as the likely core. That is a reasonable inference and it remains an inference. The order’s word “modified” applies to the accepted remedies, so even a provision both sides proposed may not read as either drafted it. The duration and monitoring row is the one with the widest gap between the parties and the least public signal.
04 — The gapsWhat is not knowable yet.
The background is settled and short. The Department of Justice and a group of states filed the case in January 2023. On April 17, 2025 the court found that Google had unlawfully monopolised the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising and unlawfully tied the two, under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. The remedies trial ran from late September 2025, with closing arguments on November 21, 2025. The September 2 order is the result of that phase.
From the order alone, the following cannot be stated: any obligation Google now has; when any obligation begins; how long it lasts; whether a trustee or monitor is appointed and with what access; which of the parties’ proposals were dropped; and why the court rejected divestiture. Coverage on the day reported reasons and mechanisms with confidence. Some of that will prove right when the opinion unseals. None of it can be checked today.
Some commentary on the day suggested the Virginia outcome weakens the European Commission’s hand in its own ad tech case, which, as PPC Land recorded, produced a €2.95 billion fine in September 2025 with structural questions still open. That is a lawyer’s opinion, not a finding. The Commission acts under a different instrument, on a different record and market definition, and a United States district order binds no European regulator. The same catalogue of conduct can produce different remedies in different systems.
05 — The decisionWhat to do until October.
For a publisher or an advertiser, the practical position is that the market keeps its structure and gains rules that are not yet written. The size of that market is in our programmatic advertising statistics and display advertising benchmarks. The routes below follow from the order and its two dates.
The wider picture for anyone who buys or sells programmatic display is in our analysis of the agentic ad tech buying layer, which was written against the integrated Google stack the order leaves in place. Teams that want their reporting and buying decisions built on documents rather than headlines can start with our paid media practice.
06 — ConclusionKnown, sealed, and not yet written.
Google keeps AdX and DFP. What it must do with them is in a sealed opinion and a judgment that does not exist yet.
The order settles the structural question. Divestiture of AdX, open-sourcing the auction logic and a contingent breakup of the ad server are rejected, in capitals, and that part is final at the district court. The behavioural question is decided but not disclosed: most of the proposals, modified, in an opinion under seal.
Two dates convert that into something a business can act on. Around September 16 the reasoning becomes readable. Around October 2 the parties file the first public text of Google’s obligations, with their disagreements shown side by side. Until then, every specific remedy in circulation is a proposal or a report.
We will publish a follow-up when the opinion unseals, and a second when the joint final judgment is filed. This post records what was knowable on September 3, 2026, and stops there.