Brussels green lights Google's DoubleClick deal

by Tristan O'Carroll, Media Week 11-Mar-08, 16:10

LONDON - Google has completed its acquisition of online ad company, DoubleClick, after securing European Commission approval for the £3.1bn (£1.5bn) deal.

Google rival Microsoft had been a vocal opponent of the acquisition, which deepens the search behemoth's dominance of search advertising.

The European Commission began its investigation last November, after concerns the merger would overly restrict competition in the online advertising sector.

However, the European Commission cleared the deal, concluding that it would be "unlikely to have harmful effects on consumers, either in ad serving or in intermediation in online advertising markets".

Eric Schmidt, Google's Chairman and chief executive, said: "With DoubleClick, Google now has the leading display ad platform, which will enable us to rapidly bring to market advances in technology and infrastructure that will dramatically improve the effectiveness, measurability and performance of digital media for publishers, advertisers and agencies, while improving the relevance of advertising for users."