The European Commission issued a statement this week saying it had opened an in-depth investigation into the proposed acquisition under EU merger regulation.
“The Commission’s initial market investigation indicated that the proposed merger would raise competition concerns in the markets for intermediation and ad serving in online advertising,” the statement said.
It now has 90 working days to make a final decision on whether the transaction would impede effective competition.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is also looking at the possible impact of the proposed acquisition.
The further Commission investigation will look in particular at whether DoubleClick would have grown into an effective competitor of Google in the market for online ad intermediation if the acquisition did not take place.
It will also investigate whether the merger, which combines the leading providers online advertising space and intermediation services, with ad serving technology, could lead to anti-competitive restrictions and harm consumers.
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