EU: Microsoft's Last Stand Against Google's Acquisition of DoubleClick
As we reported December 20, the last hurdle to Google's acquisition of Doubleclick now rests with the European Union after obtaining approval for the merger in the United States. — One company petitioning against the acquisition is Microsoft.
Context & Ripple Effects
Google's $3.1 billion pursuit of DoubleClick has run all year: DoubleClick first explored a sale back in March 2007, consumer and privacy groups pressed for limits on Google by June, and by December 19 Bloomberg reported people close to the process expected the deal to win clearance. US approval has now landed, leaving Brussels as the sole remaining reviewer.
What makes this round different is who is arguing against it: Microsoft, Google's chief rival in advertising and search, is formally petitioning the European Union to block the acquisition. With Washington's review complete, Microsoft's filing turns the EU into the last venue where the deal's fate — and the shape of the online display-ad market — can still be contested.
First-order effects
- The European Commission's review is now the single gatekeeping decision for Google's DoubleClick purchase; until it rules, Google cannot integrate DoubleClick's ad-serving network with its own.
- Microsoft's petition forces EU regulators to weigh competitive objections from the deal's most direct rival, raising the bar Google must clear in Brussels after clearing it in the US.
Second-order effects
- Advertisers and publishers weighing display-ad contracts face pricing uncertainty while the EU deliberates, since an approved merger would combine Google's reach with DoubleClick's ad-serving infrastructure.
- A successful Microsoft lobbying effort would hand every future Google acquisition a playbook for opposition: route complaints through whichever jurisdiction reviews last.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, major internet mergers will routinely face divergent outcomes across the Atlantic, with companies like Microsoft treating regulators as a competitive arena rather than a compliance formality.
- The case positions online advertising consolidation — search plus ad serving — as the next frontier of antitrust scrutiny, beyond the software markets that defined earlier cases.
The trend: Competition between Google and Microsoft is migrating from product markets into antitrust proceedings, with each side using regulators as leverage over the other's expansion.