Google hits autobahn speed bump ... the EU

Not to be outdone by Microsoft, Google is also facing scrutiny from the European Union for its proposed acquisition of DoubleClick for $3.1 billion. EU officials claim that the combination of the two companies puts Google in too much control of the online advertising market. The EU probe has a deadline of April 2^nd to determine if they will limit competition by buying DoubleClick. Google is of course crying foul because the bulk of the complaints come from Microsoft and Yahoo. Microsoft recently came out of a very expensive and long EU investigation. It's all part of being one of the "big" players ... big oil, big tobacco, big blue, big search. I don't see this to materially affect Google in the long term as they can probably show that there are other advertising serving engines out there. As discussed here before, I believe the whole advertising model is changing from "search" to "find me" anyway. At least we can still go 220 clicks on the E40 from Frankfurt to Berlin ... so much for the information superhighway.