Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) officially took over ad tracker DoubleClick Inc. today after the EU approved the $3.1 billion deal first announced almost a year ago. The EU found that the deal won't prevent competition in online advertising. Its official statement read:
“The Commission’s in-depth market investigation found that Google and DoubleClick were not exerting major competitive constraints on each other’s activities and could, therefore, not be considered as competitors at the moment.”
Google shares are up almost 5% on the news, with Google CEO and Chairman Eric Schmidt writing in his official blog that he is "pleased to share the news that we completed our acquisition of DoubleClick today. Although it's been nearly a year since we announced our intention to acquire DoubleClick last April, we are no less excited today about the benefits that the combination of our two companies will bring to the online advertising market."
United States regulators cleared it in December. Approval from the EU was the last hurdle before the deal could conclude.
The combination of the two companies led to objections from companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo, who were concerned about Google's potential control over ad prices. U.S. regulators, however, dismissed such concerns in December, and now with EU approval the real question is whether Google will indeed reap benefits from the acquisition.
Schmidt said combining with DoubleClick will allow more rapid ad advances, specifically better ad targeting. The major concern stemming from such promises is not economic but personal privacy. Ad targeting requires knowing the user, and privacy advocates are very concerned about such developments.
Setting aside such concerns, the fact is that this purchase finally gives Google a place in online display ads - which is good news for them and bad news for their competitors.
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