BRUSSELS - EU antitrust regulators gave the greenlight on Tuesday to Google`s takeover of online advertising giant DoubleClick after ruling the deal would not stifle competition.
"The (European) Commission`s in-depth investigation, opened in November 2007, concluded that the transaction would be unlikely to have harmful effects on consumers," Europe`s top anti-trust watchdog said in a statement.
"The Commission has therefore concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition," it added.
Google ended a bidding war with Microsoft in April 2007 by agreeing to pay 3.1 billion dollars (2.0 billion euros) to add DoubleClick to its Internet money-making arsenal.
The deal, which received regulatory clearance in the United States in December, has fuelled concerns that it could pose privacy risks by giving the Internet giant unprecedented access to personal data.
The commission said that its decision was based solely on the deal`s expected impact on competition and that it did not take into account the "merged entity`s obligations under EU legislation in relation to the protection of individuals and the protection of privacy."
DoubleClick is one of the largest players in online advertising and uses various techniques to help companies target their ads to specific Internet users.
In a practice common in the industry, DoubleClick installs software bits referred to as "cookies" on Internet users` computers to track pages they view.
Google meanwhile stores its users` search terms in a way that can identify them through their Internet Protocol address.
Privacy advocates fear that Google and DoubleClick would be able to merge their expansive databases on people`s Internet activities.
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03/11/2008 14:00 GMT