You’ll get the headlines, the snark, and just enough industry gossip to hold your own at a marketing happy hour. But let’s be real—you’re only skimming the surface.

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The hype cycle was in overdrive. For months, the adtech world whispered the same thing: this was it, the Big One. The Department of Justice had asked Judge Amit Mehta to do what regulators have tiptoed around for decades—split Google apart. Chrome amputated. Android spun off. The ad server and exchange pried loose like barnacles off a tanker.

And Ari Paparo—one of the smartest, sharpest voices in the space—called his shot. His analysis was straightforward: if Mehta went for the jugular, it would mean short-term chaos but long-term fairness. Markets would wobble, publishers would sweat, advertisers would scramble, but eventually the balance of power might shift.

Paparo wasn’t a lone wolf on this one. Magnite basically wrote it into their investor fantasy deck. Their strategy was half predicated on the idea that Google would be forced to sell off pieces—or at least cough up enough data to finally make the playing field competitive. Smaller SSPs and DSPs, too, were polishing their knives, salivating over what a breakup might unlock. The collective daydream was clear: the DOJ would do the dirty work, and suddenly the industry could feast on Google’s scraps.

Spoiler: nope. Not gonna happen.

Judge Mehta didn’t swing an axe. He barely waved the gavel.

Instead, the remedies looked more like probation conditions than punishment: Google must share some search data, stop signing exclusive default deals (like the one with Apple), and operate under the watchful eye of a compliance committee for six years.

That’s it.

Wall Street reacted like Google just won a free lottery ticket. Alphabet stock shot up 7–8% in after-hours trading. Investors were openly relieved that the “Google breakup” headlines they’d been bracing for turned into what most described as a “slap on the wrist.”

The industry, which had been buzzing about guillotines and adtech liberation, suddenly looked like it had just woken up from a wet dream to cold reality.

Let’s be clear: Ari was wrong on this one. He expected a cleaver; we got a feather duster.

But here’s the truth: being wrong once in a while is the tax you pay for making bold, public predictions. And Ari makes more right calls than most of us put together. In a business where most analysts are too afraid to go on record, Ari actually takes swings. You don’t bat a thousand in this game, but if you’re batting .700? You’re basically Babe Ruth with a Twitter account.

And yes, I’ll admit it: I’ve been a total asshat in the past—too confrontational, too sharp, too quick to take the gloves off with him. Hopefully Ari knows it’s never been personal. I owe him an apology, and will keep apologizing until he has coffee with me. Because even when he’s wrong, he’s still one of the few people worth listening to in this space.

Ari wasn’t the only one who got it wrong. The entire industry did. Magnite, smaller independents, and plenty of analysts all bought into the fantasy that Judge Mehta would finally gut Google’s empire. They planned around it, hoped for it, even banked on it.

But Mehta’s logic was simple: he wasn’t about to play surgeon with a trillion-dollar company—especially at a time when AI is rewriting the rules of competition. Instead, he chose surgical nudges over structural shock. Enough to label Google a monopolist, not enough to fundamentally change the game.

And here’s where the story doesn’t end. A new session starts September 22 in Alexandria, Virginia, where Judge Leonie Brinkema has already found Google guilty of running illegal monopolies in two ad markets: publisher ad servers and ad exchanges.

This isn’t a rerun of Mehta’s trial. It’s the remedy phase, and it could get brutal.

AdExchanger’s James Hercher will be on the ground in Alexandria covering week one. Expect plenty of color from the courtroom—because this time, the DOJ isn’t asking for behavioral tweaks, they’re swinging for structural remedies.

And here’s the kicker: while Google plans to appeal, it can’t appeal until remedies are finalized. Whatever Brinkema decides will stand, at least temporarily.

So yes—Ari was wrong this time. Magnite was wrong. A lot of very smart people were wrong. But the game isn’t over. Google dodged the bullet in Washington, but in Virginia, the gun is already loaded.

👉 And that’s where we pick up in the next section: what remedies the DOJ is really pushing for, who’s on the witness list, and why this trial might actually matter more than the one Judge Mehta just wrapped.

The headlines said Google lost. Wall Street said Google won. The truth? It’s far messier—and unless you’re inside ADOTAT+, you’re only getting the surface-level story.

In ADOTAT+, we dig into the receipts:

Free readers get the spin. Members get the strategy, the numbers, the backroom whispers.

If you want to know not just what happened, but what happens next—you need to be inside ADOTAT+.

👉 Stay bold. Stay curious. And know more than you did yesterday.