FTC clears AdMob acquistion by Google

Google

The US Federal Trade Commission announced today that it had approved Google’s acquisition of mobile-advertising company AdMob.

The Federal Trade Commission has closed its investigation of Google’s proposed acquisition of mobile advertising network company AdMob after thoroughly reviewing the deal and concluding that it is unlikely to harm competition in the emerging market for mobile advertising networks.

While the FTC suggests that the acquisition raises some serious antitrust issues, it indicates that the market is still a very new and growing rapidly. The FTC expects that the move will not preclude new competition:

A number of firms appear to be developing or acquiring smartphone platforms to better compete against Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android, and these firms would have a strong incentive to facilitate competition among mobile advertising networks.

With this news, Google expects that it will close the AdMob acquisition in the coming weeks.

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