March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., owner of the most- popular Internet search engine, closed its $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick Inc. after European regulators said the purchase wouldn't harm competition in the online ad market.
Google said it completed the deal after the European Commission, the 27-nation EU's antitrust authority in Brussels, approved the transaction without conditions. Google announced the purchase in April to bolster sales of Internet ads that include pictures and videos.
``This gives Google an excellent foothold into the display- ad market and rounds out the products they can bring to their clients,'' Colin Gillis, an analyst at Canaccord Adams in New York, said in a telephone interview. He recommends buying Google shares and doesn't own any.
The EU approval is a blow to Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corp., which expressed concerns that the combination would hurt competition in the $40.9 billion global online ad market. Microsoft complained to U.S. and EU officials that it may be shut out of the combined company's ad network.
In December, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission approved the deal, the biggest in Google's nine-year history, without imposing asset sales or other conditions.
``With DoubleClick, Google now has the leading display-ad platform,'' Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said in a statement.
Google rose $13.96, or 3.4 percent, to $427.58 at 12:29 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The stock had fallen 40 percent this year before today.
Ad Revenue
Google, based in Mountain View, California, generates revenue from selling text-based ads that appear next to search results. DoubleClick's two main products help Web publishers and companies manage online advertising. The software handles so- called display ads, which include graphics or animation.
Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, trails Google in Web search services. It said last April that Google's planned acquisition would give its rival more than 80 percent of the market for ads displayed on third-party Web sites.
Microsoft plans to make its own acquisition in the online- ad market with a $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo. That offer, announced on Feb. 1, was rejected by Yahoo's board. Microsoft bought DoubleClick rival AQuantive Inc. for $6 billion last year.
Google dominates the Internet search market with 58.5 percent. Microsoft has 9.8 percent, while Yahoo has 22.2 percent, according to January data from Reston, Virginia-based research firm ComScore Inc.
The commission said in a statement that Google and DoubleClick ``were not exerting major competitive constraints on each other's activities and could, therefore, not be considered as competitors.''
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