By a 4-1 vote, the Federal Trade Commission gave its approval to the acquisition of DoubleClick by Google (GOOG), ending its 7-month review of the merger. Pamela Harbour was the lone dissenting vote on the Commission.
The last hurdle for the two companies to complete the deal is the European Commission, which may be a more difficult sell than the FTC was.
Rejecting the arguments of opponents of the deal concerning privacy and anti-trust concerns, the FTC noted that the recent acquisitions of online ad companies by Yahoo (YHOO) and their acquisitions of BlueLithium and Right Media Exchange, along with the acquisition of aQuantive and AdECN by Microsoft (MSFT), makes antitrust concerns irrelevant.
They added that privacy issues are not "not unique to Google and DoubleClick," and the merger would do nothing to change that.
Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt said in a statement concerning the decision: "The FTC's strong support sends a clear message: this acquisition poses no risk to competition and will benefit consumers."
Harbour in her dissent said the idea that while the market is still fragmented, it is moving toward consolidating, and search and display ads are no longer able to be distinguished as separate markets.
The other commissioners held that the market is still fragmented, a major reason for their lack of concern over antitrust issues.
The Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) was happy with the results, saying, "Privacy remains an important issue, but these concerns will benefit from separate, industry-wide consideration. As the FTC's statement observes, privacy issues 'extend to the entire online advertising marketplace.' It would do a disservice to consumer interests to shoehorn privacy questions into competition analyses regarding individual companies."
Some consumer advocacy groups were disappointed in the approval of the merger, continuing to cite privacy and antitrust concerns.
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