“The judge seems willing to order structural changes in Google’s ad exchange practices, which may affect Google’s bottom line somewhat, but don’t seem to necessarily threaten its core value proposition as an advertising middleman,” he added.

In an ongoing series of antitrust lawsuits, the US government argues Google and its parent company Alphabet should be broken up - which could include selling off parts of the company such as the Chrome browser.

The US case will now move to a second “remedies” phase, which could also lead to Alphabet being broken up, said John Kwoka, a professor of economics at Northeastern University.

Unless Trump rescues them, I guess.