Should the federal government break up Big Tech companies?

One FOR case in this debate

I worked at a local newspaper that watched its ad revenue get vacuumed up by two companies. Google sits on both sides of the ad auction, running the exchange, the buying tools, and the selling tools, and taking a cut at every step. In April 2025 a federal judge ruled Google illegally monopolized online advertising technology, agreeing with the Justice Department's ad-tech case. Studies of programmatic advertising have found publishers keep barely half of each ad dollar while intermediaries take the rest. A free press cannot survive when the company grading the auction is also bidding in it. Splitting Google's ad business from its exchange would not kill digital advertising. It would return it to something resembling a market.

2 comments

Discussion (2)

@eileen.bellFor1 month ago

Local news is dying in plain sight and the ad-tech monopoly is a big reason why. When one company runs the auction and bids in it, publishers cannot win. Splitting the exchange from the ad business is the minimum honest fix.

@ivan.donaldsonAgainst1 month ago

Publishers also spent a decade giving content away free and failing to build subscription products. Google did not force that strategy. The monopoly is real, but the industry's own mistakes deserve some of the blame.