Google Just Won the Right to Keep Its Ad Tech Tools. They Live in the One Business It Has That Is Shrinking.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL) dodged a breakup on Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema declined the government's request to force a sale of the company's ad exchange and its publisher ad server, instead accepting most of the parties' proposed behavioral remedies, with modifications of her own. The decision lands about 16 months after the same judge found Google had illegally monopolized key advertising technology markets, and it closes off the most severe outcome the case could have produced.But the ad tech Google just won the right to keep sits in the one piece of Alphabet that is already shrinking. Revenue in the company's Google Network business, where the contested products live, has fallen for three straight years. And it slipped again in the second quarter while every other revenue line at the company grew.In other words, Alphabet spent years of legal effort defending what is arguably its least important business. That context matters, I think, before assuming this week's ruling changes much for shareholders.Continue readingWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei MotleyFool Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei MotleyFool