Google tests AdSense partners; publishers lose suit

Google is changing a little-known AdSense setting that decides which outside ad vendors can use consent signals in Europe, while a federal judge has thrown out a publishers’ antitrust case over Google’s power in news search. (support.google.com) (justia.com) On April 6, 2026, Google said AdSense will start testing an updated list of “commonly used ad technology partners” on or after April 20, 2026. If the test helps publishers, Google said it will roll out the revised list on or after June 5, 2026. (support.google.com) That list matters in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, where publishers must name the companies that can receive users’ data for ads. Google says publishers can keep using the Google-managed list or switch to a custom list inside AdSense controls. (support.google.com 1) (support.google.com 2) Google’s help pages say the default list is built from partners that represent the most revenue to publishers across programmatic demand sources and that meet Google’s privacy standards. In practice, that means a settings change inside AdSense can alter which vendors are automatically covered by a publisher’s consent setup. (support.google.com 1) (support.google.com 2) The court fight moved on a separate track. On March 20, 2026, United States District Judge Amit P. Mehta dismissed claims brought by Helena World Chronicle and Emmerich Newspapers against Google and Alphabet in the District of Columbia. (justia.com) (courtlistener.com) The publishers said Google used its search dominance to control online news distribution, reuse publisher content, and strengthen products including Google News, Top Stories, and Gemini. Judge Mehta said the complaint did not plausibly define a valid antitrust market or show that the publishers had antitrust standing in the general search market. (justia.com) (hausfeld.com) The opinion also said some allegations attacked conduct that helped Google build its search position 10 to 20 years ago, outside the four-year statute of limitations for federal antitrust claims. Mehta wrote that the publishers’ claim that Google held 66% of an “online news” market was based on an “utterly fanciful” inference from website visits. (justia.com) (pressgazette.co.uk) That dismissal does not erase Google’s other antitrust problems. In a separate Justice Department case on April 17, 2025, a federal judge in Virginia ruled that Google illegally monopolized two open-web digital advertising markets used by publishers and ad exchanges. (justice.gov) (stblaw.com) So publishers are now looking at two different realities at once: Google is adjusting the vendor list that shapes consent and ad delivery in AdSense, and Google has still beaten, at least for now, a lawsuit that tried to recast its search power as a monopoly over online news. (support.google.com) (justia.com)