Google Closes DoubleClick Purchase After EU Approval (Update3)

, proprietor of the most-
popular Internet hunt engine, closed its $3.1 billion
acquisition of DoubleClick Inc. after European regulators said
the purchase wouldn't harm competition in the online advertisement market.

Google said it completed the trade after the European
Commission, the 27-nation EU's antimonopoly authorization in Brussels,
approved the dealing without conditions. Google announced
the purchase in April to support gross sales of Internet advertisements that
include images and videos.

''This gives Google an first-class beachhead into the display-
ad marketplace and units of ammunition out the merchandises they can convey to their
clients,'' , an analyst at Canaccord Sam Adams in New
York, said in a telephone set interview. He urges buying Google
shares and doesn't ain any.

The europium blessing is a blow to Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft
Corp., which expressed concerns that the combination would hurt
competition in the $40.9 billion planetary online advertisement market. Microsoft complained to U.S. and europium functionaries that it may be
shut out of the concerted company's advertisement network.

In December, the U.S. Federal Soldier Trade Committee approved the
deal, the greatest in Google's nine-year history, without
imposing plus gross sales or other conditions.

''With DoubleClick, Google now have the prima display-ad
platform,'' Google Head Executive Military Officer said in
a statement.

rose $13.96, or 3.4 percent, to $427.58 at 12:29
p.m. New House Of York clip in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The stock had
fallen 40 percentage this twelvemonth before today.

Ad Gross

Google, based in Mountain View, California, generates
revenue from merchandising text-based advertisements that look adjacent to search
results. DoubleClick's two chief merchandises aid Web publishing houses and
companies pull off online advertising. The software system manages so-
called show ads, which include artwork or animation.

Microsoft, the world's biggest software system maker, trails
Google in Web hunt services. It said last April that Google's
planned acquisition would give its challenger more than 80 percentage of
the marketplace for advertisements displayed on third-party Web sites.

Microsoft bes after to do its ain acquisition in the online-
ad marketplace with a $44.6 billion command for . That offer,
announced on Feb. 1, was rejected by Yahoo's board. Microsoft
bought DoubleClick challenger AQuantive Inc. for $6 billion last
year.

Google predominates the Internet hunt marketplace with 58.5
percent. Microsoft have 9.8 percent, while Yokel have 22.2
percent, according to January information from Reston, Virginia-based
research house ComScore Inc.

The committee said in a statement that Google and
DoubleClick ''were not exerting major competitory restraints on
each other's activities and could, therefore, not be considered
as competitors.''

To reach the newsman on this story:
in Bruxelles at
.