Mountain View, Calif. - Google (NASD: GOOG) announced on Tuesday that it has received approval from the European Commission for its $3.1 billion acquisition of online advertising giant DoubleClick, and completed the transaction. "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," said Google chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt.

The company received antitrust approval for the deal from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in December.

Consumer and digital rights groups had raised concerns over the combination of two huge companies in the online advertising space, and the control over users' personal information that Google would potentially gain through the deal.

But regulators on both sides of the pond concluded that the companies were not direct competitors, and that competition would remain in the ad-serving sector from companies like Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL if DoubleClick were to be acquired by Google.

Schmidt added on the Google blog that the deal will likely spark redundancies. "As with most mergers, there may be reductions in headcount. We expect these to take place in the U.S. and possibly in other regions as well."

Related Links:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/20080311_doubleclick.html

http://snipurl.com/21iyx (Google blog)

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9890858-7.html