GOOG Acquisition of DCLK Approved

The Federal Trade Commission approved Google's acquisition of Doubleclick this morning the Associated Press reports. The $3.1 billion deal will substantially enhance Google's position within the online advertising space as Doublick serves a substantial portion of online advertising and the combination will make Google the #1 company in that space.

The decision comes over opposition lodged from a number of organizations including Microsoft, AT&T, Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Center for Digital Democracy and the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups.

The FTC acted one day after an announcement between Microsoft and and Viacom that could total $500 million over the coming 5 years in which Microsoft will sell Viacom's remnant ad space on properties including MTV, Comedy Central, CBS and others. Microsoft will guarantee Viacom revenues by buying online ad space from Viacom, as well as licensng the company's content for use across the MSN sites.

Viacom's decision to go with a Google competitor is not terribly surprising in light of the company's on-going $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit lodged against Google over YouTube's display of copyrighted material, including the Daily Show, Colbert Report and others. Specifically, Viacom argued that Google was instructing its advertisers to optimize their content to appear on search results pages leading to the pages where Viacom's copyright videos can actually be viewed.

The agreement also provides some rationalization to Microsoft's acquisition of aQuantive, which owns Avenue A/Razorfish and Atlas. Avenue A is web marketing consultancy that recently helped AT&T with its re-branding. Atlas is a software company that is used to serve and track advertising on partner and affiliate sites. Viacom's properties and advertising provide Microsoft with a use for these large new assets.

This is just one of many arenas in which it will continue to be interesting to watch Google and Microsoft face-off.