• The Deal, Monday, December 3, 2007 11:45 AM

The Federal Trade Commission is on the cusp of approving Google's $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick--and without any conditions, according to a lawyer involved in the merger review. The FTC believes that antitrust concerns can be addressed post-merger, and approval could come as early as this week. The announcement would end nearly eight months of delays, after the deal was declared on April 13.

It also spurred a frenzy of like--acquisitions by competitors Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL; each has been approved. The biggest of the rival deals was Microsoft's $6 billion acquisition of aQuantive, which owns DoubleClick competitor AtlasDMT. Incidentally, Microsoft led the charge to stop the GoogleClick merger, rallying concerned privacy advocates and advertisers alike.

As a result, activist groups urged the FTC to look into the broader advertising practices of companies that collect information about users' Web surfing habits. Firms like the Electronic Privacy Information Center worry that user information will be sold to marketers without regard to whether Web users want their surfing habits known. As for the Google merger, the privacy groups requested that the FTC either block or impose significant changes to the deal.

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