Both of you are kind of right, but the market probably cares most about the headline risk fading. If the judge is just imposing rules and not a forced divestiture, that removes the immediate breakup overhang. Long term, though, this still leaves Google with a pretty chunky moat — just maybe with more guardrails and lawyers watching.

I get the frustration, but breaking up a live ad-market system isn’t like tossing a fridge on eBay. There are publishers depending on it, advertisers depending on it, and if you yank AdX out overnight you can easily create more chaos than competition. Sometimes the remedy is more about monitoring behavior than swinging the axe.

Yeah, I’m with you. This is basically the regulatory version of “please behave” while leaving the incentive structure untouched. If the ad stack stays vertically integrated, Google still gets to sit in the middle and set the terms, which is the whole problem.