• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, October 12, 2007

The FTC appears poised to give the nod to Google's planned $3.1 billion buyout of ad-serving company DoubleClick, according to recent press accounts.

Attorney Mark Kovner told Reuters that regulators likely don't view the world's largest search company and DoubleClick as competitors, so their merger wouldn't raise typical antitrust concerns. "To the outside observer it seems like advertising is a big wide open field," Kovner told Reuters.

European regulators, on the other hand, might be more troubled by the deal; in Europe, authorities are more inclined to consider the sheer size of companies when deciding whether they present anti-competitive threats, according to Kovner. The European Commission is slated to decide whether to seek more information or approve the deal by Oct. 26.

Meanwhile, Google continues to consolidate its hold on the search market. A recent report by comScore revealed that users worldwide conducted 37 billion searches in August, out of 61 billion searches across all engines. In other words, Google accounts for around 60% of all search activity. Paid search itself accounts for around 41% of U.S. online ad dollars, according to recent Interactive Advertising Bureau data.

Yahoo was a distant second place to Google, accounting for 8.5 billion worldwide searches, while Baidu placed third with 3.6 billion. Microsoft lagged in fourth place, with 2.2 billion searches in August.