Well, crap. Blocking about 80% of ads has been easy. Adblock just blocks anything to do with DoubleClick, period. DoubleClick is infamous for some of the web's most obnoxious ad content.
Do I have to block Google, now?
Google buy of DoubleClick cleared by EU
March 11, 2008: 09:40 AM EST
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.
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/AFX-0013-23682695.htm
