14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this week, Google announced plans to acquire Admeld, an online advertising startup which would help it cover areas of the online ad landscape it's currently not available in. While not official, Google was said to be willing to pay $400 million for the company, so the deal was obviously going to get some scrutiny from government regulators in the US.
The US Department of Justice will be investigating the anti-trust implications of the proposed deal.
While all of its bigger deals get investigated these days, only to be approved eventually, it could still prove to be an impediment for Google.
There's nothing official yet, but the investigation has been confirmed by several independent reports citing people familiar with the matter. Not that it is of any surprise, the only question was whether the Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission would be the one leading the investigation.
At the same time, Google is being reviewed on several other matters. The FTC is preparing a big investigation into Google's dominance of the search market and whether it's abusing its position to push its own products over competitors'.
This while Google is also being investigated by the Department of Justice over illegal pharma ads that may have run on its network for the past several years.
Google's proposal of acquiring ITA Software, from last year, was approved after a nine-months investigation by the FTC. Similarly, its desire to buy AdMob, a mobile advertising startup, was under scrutiny for many months before finally being approved.
For all of the attention and scrutiny, all of Google's acquisitions have been approved so far. It's likely that the Admeld deal will get by as well, though the DoJ will probably take its sweet time reviewing the matter.
Considering the position it's in, there's not much else for Google to do than try to convince anyone willing to listen that there actually is competition in the online ad space and wait for regulators to give their seal of approval.