EU gives Google green light for DoubleClick Deal

Wrangle with authorities finally comes to an end

11 March 2008 16:17 GMT / By Katie Scott

It has finally been confirmed that the EU's 3-month investigation into Google's bid to buy DoubleClick has ended.

Rumours were circling the web just 4 days ago that the deal may soon be done and dusted, but now Google has been given the go-ahead by European authorities for the $3.1 billion merger plan.

There had been concerns that the merger would give Google unrivalled access to the personal information for all those internet surfers DoubleClick has details of.

Rivals Yahoo and Microsoft, as well as advertisers and privacy advocates, claimed that this access would mean that Google would have too much control over the online ad market.

But the European Commission dismissed their objections, saying it found no proof that Google and DoubleClick would be able to marginalise competitors because Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL provided "credible" alternatives for placing ads on websites.

According to Al Jazeera, the regulators also said that the decision was based exclusively on the economic aspects of the deal and it had no bearing on the companies' obligations under EU personal privacy protection rules or how personal data is processed.

The planned acquisition had already won approval from the Federal Trade Commission in the US in December, and analysts said at the time that the EU was sure to follow suite as it has not rejected a merger approved by US authorities for 6 years.

The story is completely over though as EC investigators are going to examine if the data protection policies of search engines comply with existing EU law.

A report is due in April.

Full tags

Biz, Google, DoubleClick, EU