In a pro-Big Media trend by government regulatory agencies, Google was just handed a huge Christmas present by the FTC, which voted 4 to 1 to approve the $3 Billion Google acquisition of DoubleClick. The FTC determined that there is enough competition in the online advertising space to let Google control a very large chunk of the marketplace, especially since Google competitors like AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo have taken a similar route in securing their part of the Internet advertising world.

According to the LA Times, Microsoft was one of the largest companies lobbying against the DoubleClick acquisition.

The FTC ruled that Google and DoubleClick are not both focused on the same parts of the Internet advertising market, which is expected to bring in $28 billion in revenue next year.

The FTC did however express concerns about privacy issues in the search and Internet advertising market, since companies like Google and their competition track various person and behavioral web surfing trends to serve the most precise advertising that they can. (more…)