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The European Commission has finally approved Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick, several months after it was cleared in the US by the FTC and nearly a year after the deal was first announced. According to a statement from the EC (via Marketwatch):
"The Commission's 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."