“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.”
With the approval, Google can now focus on jump starting its display advertising business, which, is now considerably more important in light of clicks on text ads decreasing and Google’s stock price falling more than 300 points since hitting an all-time high of $747/share in November.