Technology Word

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) - Google Inc. says it has taken control of online ad service DoubleClick Inc., completing a deal that the Internet search leader announced 11 months ago.
The Mountain View-based company closed the acquisition Tuesday, just a few hours after European antitrust regulators approved the transaction over the objections of Microsoft Corp. and other companies. Those critics had argued the addition of DoubleClick will give Google too much control of online advertising prices.
U.S. regulators approved Google’s purchase in December.
Google makes most of its money selling text-based ads on the Internet. The company is counting on DoubleClick to help sell more dynamic advertising.

via AOL

SAN FRANCISCO -(Dow Jones)- European regulators are expected to approve Google Inc.’s (GOOG) $3.1 billion acquisition of Internet advertising group DoubleClick Inc. without conditions, a source familiar with European Commission antitrust procedures said Wednesday.

European approval of the deal, which rival Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) has said would hurt competition, would be the last hurdle in Google’s bid to buy DoubleClick, a transaction that would enable Google to expand beyond search ads into the online display advertising market.

The source noted that Google had not received a formal “statement of objection” from DG Competition, the EC directorate general that oversees competition law, with less than four weeks to go until the European Commission’s April 2 deadline for ruling on the acquisition. The deal was first announced in April 2007.

Statements of objection, which outline the regulator’s concerns about a proposed merger or acquisition, are followed by public hearings, an internal review of the hearings’ findings and then a final decision to reject a transaction or approve it with conditions.

The source said the fact that Google has not received a statement of objection at this point suggests that regulators are preparing to approve the acquisition without conditions. Some reports have indicated that the EC may formally approve the acquisition on March 11.

Commission officials were not immediately available for comment.

“This is still an ongoing investigation but we do not believe the transaction raises any competition concerns,” said a Google spokesman. “We hope the EC will come to the same conclusions as the FTC and clear the deal without any conditions.”

Opponents including Microsoft have claimed that combining Google’s dominance in search advertising with DoubleClick’s strength in display ads could potentially give Google an unassailable lead in the Internet ad market.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has already closed its investigation into the deal, ruling that the merger was “unlikely to substantially lessen competition.”

Microsoft moved to close the gap with Google last month by making an unsolicited $44.6 billion offer to buy struggling Internet giant Yahoo Inc. ( YHOO). Yahoo has rejected the offer as too low, but most observers believe Microsoft will ultimately win control of the company.

-By Scott Morrison, Dow Jones Newswires, 415-765-6118; scott.morrison@ dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires 03-05-08 1906ET Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
via CNN

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — European Union regulators on Tuesday cleared Google Inc.’s $3.1 billion (2.13 billion) bid for online ad tracker DoubleClick, saying it won’t curb competition for online ads.

The approval clears the last major hurdle for a deal the U.S. Department of Justice approved in December, overruling complaints from rivals Yahoo Inc. (YHOO, Fortune 500) and Microsoft Corp., (MSFT, Fortune 500) and from advertisers and privacy advocates claiming the purchase gave Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) too much control over the online ad market.

But the European Commission dismissed the objections, saying it found no proof that Google and DoubleClick would be able to marginalize competitors because Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL provided “credible” alternatives for placing ads on Web sites.

Google and DoubleClick are not currently rivals, it said, and Google’s purchase of even a potential competitor would not have an adverse impact on competition in the online ad market.

Regulators said their decision was based exclusively on the economic aspects of the deal and it had no bearing on the companies’ obligations under EU rules on personal privacy protection or how personal data is processed.

European data privacy regulators are currently examining how far search engines’ data protection policies comply with existing EU law and are due to publish a report in April. They said last month that rules would also apply to search engines headquartered outside Europe.

New York-based DoubleClick helps its customers place and track online advertising, including search ads, which Google — more than its nearest search competitors Yahoo and Microsoft — has turned into a lucrative business. It places ads on Web pages that targeted consumers are likely to use, generating money for smaller publishers and lesser-visited pages. First Published: March 11, 2008: 9:46 AM EDT

via CNN

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc said on Tuesday it has completed the $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick Inc, just hours after receiving antitrust clearance from the European Commission.

Shares of Google, which recently have been trading around year-low levels rose 4 percent to $430.19 on Nasdaq.

DoubleClick supplies advertising technology that allows Web site publishers, advertisers and ad agencies to deliver online brand advertising to Web users. It also delivers ads to mobile phone callers and electronic billboards.

(Reporting by Eric Auchard; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

via MSN

BRUSSELS, Mar. 11, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) — The European Commission has cleared the proposed 3.1 bln usd acquisition by Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) of the online advertising technology company DoubleClick.
The commission said its in-depth investigation, opened last November with a deadline of April 2, concluded that the transaction would be unlikely to have harmful effects on consumers, either in ad serving or in intermediation in online advertising markets.
The commission said it therefore concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition within the European Economic Area (EEA) or a significant part of it.
The commission said its 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.
Even if DoubleClick could become an effective competitor in online intermediation services, it is likely that other competitors would continue to exert sufficient competitive pressure after the merger, it said.
‘The elimination of DoubleClick as a potential competitor would not have an adverse impact on competition in the online intermediation advertising services market,’ the commission said.
The EU executive said it also analysed the potential effects of non-horizontal relationships between Google and DoubleClick following concerns raised by third parties in the course of the market investigation, such as DoubleClick’s market position in ad serving and Google’s market position in search advertising and online ad intermediation services.
The commission said it found the merged entity would not have the ability to engage in strategies aimed at marginalising Google’s competitors, mainly because of the presence of credible ad serving alternatives to which customers can switch, in particular vertically integrated companies such as Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) , Yahoo! Inc (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Time Warner Inc’s (NYSE:TWX) AOL.
The commission added that the market investigation found the merged entity would not have the incentive to close off access for competitors in the ad serving market, mainly because such strategies would be unlikely to be profitable.
The commission said its decision to clear the proposed merger is based exclusively on its appraisal under the EU merger regulation and is without prejudice to the merged entity’s obligations under EU legislation in relation to the protection of individuals and the protection of privacy with regard to the processing of personal data and the member states’ implementing legislation.
When the commission launched its in-depth investigation on Nov 13, it did so citing concerns over DoubleClick would have grown into an effective competitor of Google in the market for online ad intermediation without the transaction.
The proposed acquisition was cleared by US antitrust authorities on Dec 20.
Copyright Thomson Financial News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.
The copying, republication or redistribution of Thomson Financial News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Financial News.

via CNN

(Adds further details, lawyer comment and background.)

BRUSSELS -(Dow Jones)- The European Commission Tuesday cleared Google Inc.’s ( GOOG) $3.1 billion takeover of Internet advertising broker DoubleClick, without conditions.

After its six-month review into the deal, the regulator concluded that it wouldn’t harm competition or consumers in the online advertising markets, as the companies could not be considered to be competitors “at the moment.”

The commission said that, contrary to competitors claims, it didn’t believe the combined company could marginalize Google’s competitors, mainly because of the presence of credible alternatives to which customers can switch, “in particular vertically integrated companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL.”

The deal will allow Google to expand beyond search ads into graphical display ads such as banner ads, giving it a larger slice of the advertising budgets spent online.

DoubleClick acts as a broker between platforms such as Google and companies wanting to advertise products and services, especially in placing graphical ads for customers. It places ads on Web sites and tracks hits and click-through rates for clients.

Through its services Google can make gains in display advertising on Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Yahoo! Inc.(YHOO), both of which have criticized the deal in the past.

Google has always maintained that the two companies are complementary, rather than direct competitors.

The deal has also come under intense scrutiny in Europe for its potential effects on the privacy of Web users.

The combined company’s ability to collect search and advertising data, and combine that information to create targeted advertising, has worried many privacy advocates, who have pushed the commission to take this into consideration in its merger review.

The commission’s competition body said in its statement that it could only consider issues that dealt directly with European “merger regulation.”

However, as a nod to the privacy concerns, the commission added that the decision was “without prejudice” to the company’s obligations to comply with E.U. law in the way they protect individuals and privacy when processing personal data.

This does show that “the issue of data protection has not gone away,” said David Wood, antitrust lawyer at Gibson Dunn.

-By Peppi Kiviniemi, Dow Jones Newswires; +3227411483; peppi.kiviniemi@ dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires 03-11-08 1104ET Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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