For years, Google has positioned itself as the champion of the open web, touting the health and vitality of the digital ecosystem that billions rely on daily. But in a surprising twist, the tech giant has publicly acknowledged in a recent court filing that "the open web is in rapid decline," directly contradicting its own top executives’ earlier assurances that the web remains robust and thriving.
The admission, buried in a legal response dated September 5, 2025, comes as Google faces mounting pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) over its dominance in the online advertising market. The DOJ, having won an adtech antitrust case against Google earlier this year, is now pushing for remedies that could force the company to divest key parts of its advertising business, notably its AdX marketplace. Google, for its part, argues that such a move would do more harm than good—especially for the publishers who depend on open-web display advertising revenue.
"The fact is that today, the open web is already in rapid decline and Plaintiffs’ divestiture proposal would only accelerate that decline, harming publishers who currently rely on open-web display advertising revenue," Google wrote in its court filing. The company contends that the digital landscape is already undergoing significant transformation, and that further court intervention could destabilize an industry in flux. As Google put it, "the last thing a court should do is intervene to reshape an industry that is already in the midst of being reshaped by market forces." (9to5Google, The Verge, Search Engine Roundtable)
This candid statement stands in stark contrast to public comments made by Google’s leadership just a few months earlier. In May 2025, CEO Sundar Pichai flatly rejected the idea that web publishing was dying, while Nick Fox, the company’s Vice President of Search, declared, "the web is thriving." These upbeat pronouncements were echoed as recently as June, when Fox reiterated that "the web is thriving" and that Google’s search engine continues to provide a strong value exchange for the web.
Yet, as the legal battle has intensified, Google’s narrative has shifted. The company’s latest filing appears to acknowledge what many in the open web community and digital publishing world have been warning for months: that the open web is facing existential threats, not least from the very market forces and technological shifts that Google itself has helped accelerate.
The heart of the DOJ’s case against Google centers on the company’s tight integration of its display ad services with the AdX marketplace. The court previously found that this integration suppressed the adoption of rival technologies and allowed Google to preference its own services in ad auctions—effectively stifling competition and consolidating its dominance over the digital advertising ecosystem. With the court now considering whether to force Google to break up its ad business, the company is sounding the alarm that such a remedy could spell disaster for the already fragile open web.
Google’s argument is not without self-interest. The company’s advertising business has long been a juggernaut, making it nearly synonymous with the Internet itself in the eyes of many publishers and advertisers. As The Verge noted, "Google increasingly is the Internet—websites have no choice but to adhere to Google's standards for search and ads because there's no substantial competition."
But Google’s sudden embrace of the "decline" narrative has raised eyebrows, especially given the company’s previous efforts to downplay the impact of emerging technologies—like its own artificial intelligence (AI) search products—on web traffic. In June, Google publicly disputed a study that linked falling web traffic to the rise of AI-powered search, arguing that "total click volume has been relatively stable" and that "average click quality has increased." Liz Reid, Google’s head of search, reinforced this view, stating that search clicks remain "relatively stable." However, a recent Pew Research Center analysis found that AI Overviews—Google’s AI-generated search summaries—have resulted in a substantial drop in web traffic, a finding Google continues to dispute.
The company’s shifting rhetoric has not gone unnoticed. Some critics, like Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next, have suggested that Google is trying to "have it both ways"—publicly championing the health of the web while privately admitting its decline when it serves the company’s legal interests. Kint commented on X (formerly Twitter), "Glad this is being covered as it would suggest either Google executives have been lying to the public and investors for months or to a Court. It’s important context, Barry, to note this is in their actual arguments why they shouldn’t have to divest their adjudicated monopolies."
In response to the mounting controversy, Dan Taylor, Google’s Vice President of Global Ads, took to X to clarify the company’s position. "Barry—in the preceding sentence, it’s clear that Google's referring to ‘open-web display advertising’—not the open web as a whole. As you know, ad budgets follow where users spend time and marketers see results, increasingly in places like Connected TV, Retail Media & more," Taylor explained. This distinction, he argued, is crucial: while open-web display advertising may be in decline, the broader open web is still alive, even if its commercial underpinnings are shifting.
Indeed, the advertising landscape is changing rapidly. Ad budgets are increasingly flowing toward platforms such as Connected TV and Retail Media, reflecting broader shifts in consumer behavior and the ways marketers seek to reach audiences. This migration poses a significant challenge for publishers who have long relied on open-web display advertising revenue—a model that is now under threat from both technological innovation and market consolidation.
For many observers, the debate over the fate of the open web is more than just a legal or technical squabble—it’s a battle over the future of information access, digital diversity, and the economic survival of countless publishers. As Google and the DOJ continue to spar in court, the stakes for the broader Internet ecosystem could hardly be higher.
Whether the open web is truly in "rapid decline" or simply evolving in response to new technologies and business models remains a matter of fierce debate. What’s clear, however, is that Google’s own words—now on the record in a federal court—have added fresh urgency and complexity to a conversation that affects us all.
