The Justice Department antitrust division has approved Google's $400 million purchase of Admeld.
In a post to their blog on Friday, Admeld stated, "Today the U.S. Department of Justice cleared Admeld's acquisition by Google. We're extremely happy about this decision, and our plan is to close the deal within the next few days.
...In the coming weeks and months, our products and Google's will largely remain separate, but we'll begin to talk about opportunities for integration and simplification."
Founded in 2007, New York based Admeld has an impressive list of clients that includes NBCUniversal, Answers.com, and FOX News.
Justice Department sees no harm
Although Admeld was a competitor to Google in the advertising business, the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division saw no harm in allowing the company to be acquired by Google.
"After a thorough review of the evidence, the division concluded that the transaction is not likely to substantially lessen competition in the sale of display advertising.
Although the Antitrust Division concluded that this particular transaction was unlikely to cause consumer harm, the division will continue to be vigilant in the enforcement of the antitrust laws to protect competition in display and other forms of online advertising."
Google dominates the online world
In past years if you were reading a story about the giant technology corporation looking to devour
the competition, either through acquisition or brute strength in the marketplace, the company being discussed could easily have been Microsoft.
Throughout the year we have continued to refer to Google as the king of the online world as Google has continued to expand into new areas, as well as expand in areas where it was already well established.
In this case Google was simply gobbling up a small competitor. As the DOJ press release stated, in 2010 Admeld has about $30 million in ad revenues compared to Google's $29 billion.
That's right, $30 million compared to $29 billion. So Google simply acquired a small time competitor. Acquire them while they are small, so it would be less likely to be seen as snuffing out the competition.
With all the anti-trust suits and litigation against Microsoft over the years, were we all too distracted to see that Google has taking over?
Follow Tom Peracchio for internet news ... @Gu42 on Twitter or Guru42 on Facebook.
Comments