The Atlantic Monthly Group filed a federal antitrust lawsuit today against Google and its parent company Alphabet, alleging the tech giant systematically deprived the 168-year-old publication of advertising revenue through illegal monopolization of digital advertising technology markets.

The 94-page complaint, filed as Case No. 1:26-cv-00272 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, builds directly on Judge Leonie Brinkema's April 2025 ruling that found Google "willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power" in publisher ad server and ad exchange markets. The Atlantic now seeks monetary damages and injunctive relief for what it characterizes as more than a decade of deceptive and anticompetitive conduct.

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According to the complaint, Google controls more than 90% of the publisher ad server market through its DoubleClick for Publishers product and between 60-70% of the ad exchange market through DoubleClick Ad Exchange. This dominance across multiple layers of the advertising technology stack created what The Atlantic describes as an insurmountable conflict of interest—equivalent to "Goldman or Citibank owned the NYSE," according to one Google employee quoted in court documents.

The publication, which serves approximately 14 million unique visitors monthly and averages more than 50 million page views per month, relies on digital advertising for a significant percentage of its revenue. The Atlantic employs more than 200 individuals focused on publishing, including Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists who have earned three such awards in the last decade. The complaint alleges Google's conduct directly reduced the publication's ability to invest in quality journalism by artificially depressing prices for its advertising inventory.

Secret auction manipulation programs

The lawsuit details several covert programs Google allegedly used to manipulate advertising auctions without publisher knowledge. Chief among these was "Project Bernanke," launched in 2013, which the complaint describes as a sophisticated bid-rigging scheme that generated billions in additional profit for Google at publishers' expense.

According to court documents, Project Bernanke manipulated bids that Google Ads submitted to Google's ad exchange. Google would deflate the second-highest bid—often eliminating it entirely—while inflating the highest bid before submitting them to auctions. This allowed Google to underpay publishers for their inventory while continuing to charge advertisers as if they were competing in more competitive auctions. Google pocketed the difference and used what internal documents called the "Bernanke pool" to bankroll money-losing bids in other auctions specifically to beat out rival exchanges.

"In 2022 alone, Google made $30 billion from manipulating auctions for ad space across the Internet," the complaint states. Google applied Bernanke "on an auction-by-auction basis, recalculating a rigged bid each time, thereby separately and independently manipulating the price paid to publishers on billions of ad auctions."

The complaint alleges Google deliberately concealed Project Bernanke from publishers for years. Internal communications showed Google employees warned against disclosing the program, with one employee noting "the first rule of Bernanke is we don't talk about Bernanke." Google also withheld auction data that publishers might have used to uncover the manipulation.

When Google purportedly eliminated some anticompetitive advantages in 2019, the company simultaneously introduced what the complaint characterizes as functionally identical replacements. The so-called "Minimum Bid to Win" featureprovides winning bidders with the second-highest price placed in auctions—precisely the inside information needed to narrowly outbid competitors in future similar auctions.

Last Look advantage and Enhanced Dynamic Allocation

The complaint describes how Google gave its ad exchange preferential access to publisher inventory through a practice called "Last Look." Rather than compete in real-time alongside rival exchanges, Google's exchange could view competitors' bids before submitting its own, allowing it to win impressions by bidding just one penny higher than the next highest offer.

"Being able to view its competitors' bids provided Google and its advertising customers with a significant informational advantage that significantly disadvantaged other competitors in the ad exchange space," according to Judge Brinkema's April ruling cited in the complaint.

The Atlantic also challenges Google's "Enhanced Dynamic Allocation" feature, which the company introduced in 2014. This mechanism forced publishers to make every impression available for sale through Google's exchange, even impressions that publishers had already negotiated to sell directly to advertisers at guaranteed prices. Google converted these direct deals into artificially low "temporary" CPMs that its exchange could beat by bidding just one penny higher, effectively allowing Google to cherry-pick publishers' most valuable inventory.

The complaint alleges Google represented that Enhanced Dynamic Allocation would protect publishers' direct deals and increase programmatic revenue. These representations were false, according to the lawsuit. Internally, Google knew the feature improved only its own yield, not publishers' bottom line. Despite numerous inquiries from publishers including The Atlantic, Google chose not to provide the data necessary for publishers to verify whether the feature actually benefited them.

Tying arrangements and Unified Pricing Rules

The lawsuit alleges Google illegally tied its publisher ad server to its ad exchange, forcing publishers to use both products together. According to the complaint, Google permits publishers to receive real-time bids from its exchange only if they also use Google's ad server. Because Google's exchange controls such a large share of advertiser demand—particularly from small and medium-sized advertisers who use Google Ads exclusively—publishers cannot afford to forgo access.

"The Atlantic could not afford to forgo the most valuable real-time bids from the largest exchange, even though it did not want to hand over control of its inventory to Google," the complaint states.

This tying arrangement has driven virtually every remaining publisher ad server rival out of business, according to the lawsuit. While Google's ad server controlled roughly 50% of the market when Google acquired it in 2008, it now controls more than 90%.

In 2019, Google implemented "Unified Pricing Rules" that prohibited publishers from setting different price floors for different exchanges or advertisers. Previously, publishers including The Atlantic used differential price floors as their primary tool for introducing competition and mitigating Google's advantages. The complaint alleges Google eliminated this capability over publishers' objections specifically to entrench its exchange's dominance.

"Differential price floors were not a panacea and never could have substituted for a fair auction in the ad server," the complaint acknowledges. "That is because a publisher could not know, when setting a floor, what the maximum available bid from the buyer would prove to be." Nonetheless, differential floors remained valuable because they forced Google's exchange to compete more vigorously for impressions.

Financial harm and deceptive practices

The Atlantic alleges it has suffered substantial economic harm as a direct result of Google's conduct. According to the complaint, Google's various auction manipulation schemes—including Last Look, Project Bernanke, Dynamic Revenue Share, and Unified Pricing Rules—resulted in systematic underpayment for The Atlantic's advertising inventory across billions of transactions.

The lawsuit includes claims under New York General Business Law for deceptive acts and practices, alleging Google made numerous misrepresentations about how its advertising products functioned. For years, Google publicly represented that its exchange ran a "sealed bid second-price auction," when internal documents show the company was secretly running manipulated auctions through Project Bernanke and other programs.

Google contractually agreed with The Atlantic that it would not use publisher data "that is not generally shared with buyers" for purposes of informing bids made by Google. The complaint alleges this representation was false—Google routinely traded on inside information including header-bidding bids entered in its ad server.

The complaint also alleges common-law fraud, stating Google falsely represented that various features would serve The Atlantic's interests when Google knew internally these features primarily benefited the company at publishers' expense. The Atlantic relied on these misrepresentations when deciding which products to adopt and how to design its auction strategies.

Broader context of ad tech monopolization

The Atlantic's lawsuit follows similar actions by other major publishers, including Dotdash Meredith (which filed in August 2025), and ad exchanges including OpenX, PubMatic, Magnite, Index Exchange, and Raptive. All these cases build on Judge Brinkema's April 2025 liability finding in the Department of Justice's antitrust case against Google.

A federal court ruling in October 2025 granted partial summary judgment to private plaintiffs, establishing that Google is precluded from relitigating whether its conduct unlawfully monopolized ad tech markets. Publishers can now proceed directly to proving damages without having to re-establish liability.

The scope of potential financial exposure extends well beyond any individual publisher. According to the complaint, more than 90% of publishers that use a publisher ad server have been harmed by Google's deceptive practices. When treble damages provisions under federal antitrust law are applied to Google's advertising technology revenues over the monopolization period, cumulative financial exposure across private litigation could reach tens of billions of dollars.

Google simultaneously faces European Commission antitrust proceedings where regulators imposed a €2.95 billion fine in September 2025 and ordered structural remedies requiring asset divestiture. European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager explained the need for such remedies by noting Google's pattern of behavior: "Each time a practice was detected by the industry, Google subtly modified its behaviour so as to make it more difficult to detect, but with the same objectives, with the same effects."

Judge Brinkema is expected to rule on remedies in the DOJ case in early 2026, with the government seeking forced divestiture of Google's ad exchange and open-sourcing of its publisher ad server's auction logic. Google has proposed behavioral remedies instead, arguing divestiture would cause business disruption and harm customers.

Implications for journalism and digital advertising

The Atlantic's complaint emphasizes how Google's conduct directly threatens the production of quality journalism. By artificially depressing ad revenue, Google reduced the publication's ability to invest in the more than 200 editorial employees who produce deeply reported coverage of significant political and social issues.

"Providing such a broad range of high-quality news, information, and related content to that large and varied audience requires enormous investment in human talent, technology, and infrastructure," the complaint states. Digital advertising revenue funds this investment, making Google's systematic underpayment a direct threat to The Atlantic's journalistic mission.

The lawsuit arrives as publishers face mounting challenges from generative AI products that further threaten traffic and revenue. While The Atlantic's editorial team focuses on ad tech monopolization, corporate leadership has separately negotiated content licensing deals with AI companies—highlighting the multiple fronts on which publishers must now defend their business models.

The Atlantic seeks treble damages under federal antitrust law, punitive damages, restitution, and injunctive relief to restore competition in ad tech markets. The publication demands a jury trial for all issues so triable.

In a statement provided to The Atlantic's editorial team for their coverage, Google said: "These allegations are meritless. Advertisers and publishers have many choices and when they choose Google's ad tech tools it's because they are effective, affordable and easy to use."

Timeline

Summary

Who: The Atlantic Monthly Group, a 168-year-old publication with 14 million monthly unique visitors, filed suit against Google LLC and Alphabet Inc. Judge Leonie Brinkema previously ruled on the underlying antitrust violations in litigation brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and 17 states.

What: A comprehensive 94-page antitrust complaint alleging Google monopolized publisher ad server and ad exchange markets through systematic manipulation including unlawful tying arrangements, insider trading advantages called Last Look and Minimum Bid to Win, auction rigging via Project Bernanke and its successor Alchemist, Dynamic Revenue Share manipulation, Enhanced Dynamic Allocation interference with direct deals, and elimination of competitive safeguards through Unified Pricing Rules. The lawsuit seeks monetary damages including treble damages, punitive damages, and injunctive relief.

When: Filed January 13, 2026, following Judge Brinkema's April 17, 2025 ruling that Google violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. The alleged anticompetitive conduct spans from 2008 through the present, with various schemes implemented between 2013 and today continuing to harm publishers.

Where: Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York as Case No. 1:26-cv-00272. The relevant markets are worldwide for both publisher ad servers and ad exchanges, excluding countries with government internet censorship or subject to U.S. economic sanctions. The Atlantic maintains its largest office in New York with over 170 employees.

Why: The lawsuit matters because it represents a major publisher's effort to recover damages from more than a decade of alleged monopolistic conduct that artificially depressed advertising revenues and reduced investment in quality journalism. Google's control of more than 90% of the publisher ad server market and 60-70% of the ad exchange market created structural conflicts of interest that the company allegedly exploited through secret manipulation programs. The case builds on established antitrust liability and could result in billions in damages across the publishing industry, while highlighting how digital advertising monopolization directly threatens independent journalism's financial sustainability.

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