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WEDNESDAY MARCH 12
Google: One Step Closer To ‘Digital Colossus’? World domination is clearly nigh for the Internet titan, as it receives a key approval for an acquisition that will bolster its clout in the $37 billion online advertising market. March 2008European regulators on Tuesday approved Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick, a significant player in the $37 billion online advertising business, brushing aside complaints that the combination would allow Google to extend its Internet dominance. Shortly after, Google announced that it had closed the $3.1 billion acquisition and said the integration of the two companies may result in some job cuts. Only weeks after imposing a fine of 899 million euros ($1.3 billion) on another technology company, Microsoft, in an antitrust case, the commission said the Google-DoubleClick deal would not hurt competition. Google accounted for 58.5 percent of all searches in the United States in January, according to comScore (In some European countries it has 80 to 90 percent). Google also accounted for 28 percent of the $21.4 billion online advertising market in the United States in 2007, according to eMarketer. That dominance has been a sensitive issue, with governments becoming involved in efforts to establish rivals; on Tuesday the commission approved France’s plans to finance a search engine called Quaero. Critics said the ruling could help create a “digital colossus” by allowing Google to strengthen its position in other kinds of online advertising, including display ads like banners, and television-like video spots, where it has had limited success.
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