November 13th will be the new date for the European Union Competition Commission to give its decision on Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick, based on the Commission’s perception of competition issues.
EU Extends Google, DoubleClick Review
A little touch of The Fear may be circulating the counsel offices in Google’s Europe operations.
An extension of the original deadline to give or deny Google’s deal to buy DoubleClick on competitive grounds has been pushed forward to November, when it had been scheduled to take place on October 26th.
Reuters suggested a deeper meaning to the date change:
The deadline for a decision on the $3.1 billion deal was moved back so proposed remedies to possible competition problems could be tested, a spokeswoman for the European Union executive said.
That means Google has proposed changes to the deal, which will be vetted with customers and competitors.
Google has long portrayed the buy as being similar to purchases made by its competitors, to add expanded display advertising capabilities to their existing search advertising services.
Privacy concerns have been raised in the US over one company gaining access to a majority of Internet users’ surfing habits, should the deal be approved. But it appears likely the US Federal Trade Commission will rubber-stamp the deal regardless of those, while the EU already dismissed privacy issues from its consideration of possible anti-competitive practices.
