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Google's Ad Racket Finally Got Called Out. So Why Am I Not Celebrating?

Well, knock me over with a feather. A federal judge in New York finally looked at Google’s behemoth ad-tech machine and called it what it is: an illegal monopoly. Gannett, the newspaper chain that owns everything from USA TODAY to your tiny local paper, actually won. They, along with a few other publishers, got a judge to agree that Google has been rigging the game, siphoning off the ad revenue that was supposed to keep the lights on at newsrooms across the country.

I should be popping a bottle of cheap champagne. For years, I’ve been screaming into the void about this. We all have. Anyone with half a brain could see how Google built a system where they own the marketplace, they represent the buyer, they represent the seller, and they, offcourse, take a cut at every single step. It’s like a bookie who also owns both teams and the stadium they play in. You don't have to be a legal scholar to see the problem.

And now, U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel has made it official; a Judge sides with online publishers in Google ad tech antitrust case. The court basically said, "Yep, Google, you're liable." Gannett CEO Mike Reed is out there calling it a “major development” and a “good day for competition.”

It’s a win. A clear one. So why does it feel so... hollow?

The Echo Chamber of Justice

Let’s be real about what happened here. Judge Castel didn’t exactly reinvent the wheel. His ruling was basically a copy-paste job from another judge’s work. He heavily leaned on the findings from the Justice Department’s trial against Google in Virginia, where Judge Leonie Brinkema had already done the heavy lifting and declared Google’s ad monopoly illegal. Castel even wrote that her findings were “precise and concise.”

This is a good thing. No, wait—'good' isn't the right word. It's an efficient thing, I guess. It saves Gannett the trouble and expense of re-proving facts that the government already spent millions of taxpayer dollars establishing. One legal expert, Spencer Weber Waller, described it perfectly: “This is like starting the 10th inning with a runner on second base. You’re halfway home.”

But it also shines a glaring, fluorescent light on how slow and reactive our entire system is. We needed one massive federal case to grind on for years, just so another case could point to it and say, “Yeah, what they said.” How many local newspapers went under while we waited for these rulings? How many reporters got laid off because the ad money that should have paid their salaries was instead funding another kombucha-on-tap station at the Googleplex? The damage has been done. This isn't justice; it's an autopsy.

And Google’s response from back when this all started? It’s a masterclass in corporate gaslighting. A vice president named Dan Taylor claimed publishers "keep the vast majority of revenue" when they use Google's tools. It’s a statement so brazenly dishonest it’s almost admirable. It’s like a casino owner telling you that you keep the “vast majority” of your money, conveniently forgetting to mention the house edge is designed to bleed you dry over time. They expect us to believe this stuff...

A Payout Won't Fix a Broken Business

Here’s the part that really sticks in my craw. Even if this all works out for the publishers, what does it actually change? Let's say Gannett gets a massive payout from Google. A billion dollars. Five billion. Whatever the number is, where does that money go? Does it go to re-hiring the hundreds of local journalists they’ve laid off over the last decade? Does it fund investigative units in places like Akron or Boise?

Or does it go to servicing corporate debt, paying out executive bonuses, and propping up a stock price for a few more quarters? Come on. We’re not idiots.

This is the uncomfortable truth that nobody in the C-suite wants to admit. The ad-supported model for news is fundamentally broken, especially for legacy players. Google didn’t create the fire, but they sure as hell perfected selling gasoline. Brian Wieser, a media analyst, said it best: even with this win, publishers face "industry headwinds." He’s right. The core problem is that for two decades, we’ve trained an entire generation of readers to believe that high-quality journalism should be free.

This lawsuit, this "major development," doesn't fix that. It's a payout for past damages. It’s a speeding ticket for a getaway driver who has already successfully robbed a dozen banks. The money is gone. The trust is gone. The habit of paying for news is gone.

So what are we left with? A legal victory that feels more like a historical footnote than a turning point. It's a necessary step, sure, but it's a step on a path that still seems to be leading off a cliff. What happens when the settlement money runs out? Will we be right back here, watching another tech giant find a new, more sophisticated way to pick the pockets of creators?

The House Always Wins

Look, I'm glad Google got slapped. It's satisfying in a petty, schadenfreude kind of way. But let's not pretend this is some David vs. Goliath victory for the little guy. This is one corporate giant, Gannett, scoring a legal point against an even bigger corporate giant, Google. The money will flow from one balance sheet to another, and the journalists on the ground—and the readers who depend on them—will see barely a ripple. The game is rigged, and this ruling didn't change the rules; it just forced one of the players to pay a fine. For Google, that's just the cost of doing business. For the rest of us, it's just another Tuesday.