Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Government Seeks More Information on Google’s Admeld Acquisition

The Justice Department has asked Google for more information and time as it investigates the search giant’s $400 million acquisition of Admeld, a display advertising company, Google said on Wednesday.

The government’s demand, known as a second request, has become common for acquisitions by Google, which the Federal Trade Commission is investigating for possible anticompetitive behavior.

The department last asked Google for more information and time when examining the $700 million acquisition of I.T.A. Software last year. That investigation ultimately lasted eight months and was technology/09google.html">approved with stringent conditions in April.

The Admeld acquisition was announced in June. The company helps Web publishers sell ad space in real time, including with Google’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Google has said that the government is investigating it because the purchase price crosses a threshold.

The second request “doesn’t surprise us, as today’s display advertising industry is very new and highly complex,” Neal Mohan, Google’s vice president of display advertising, wrote in a blog post. “But we’ll work to enable this review to be concluded as quickly as possible.”

Mr. Mohan argued that publishers and advertisers had many options for buying and selling display ads, including three that were new in the last month. In addition to start-ups, Google also competes with big companies like Yahoo and Microsoft in display advertising.

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