Given Google made significant mention of their acquired AdMob technology at Google IO this week, it would’ve been embarrassing had the FTC turned around and failed to approve the deal. Happily – for Google – that’s not the case, with the final, unanimous judgement of the FTC investigators being that the Google AdMob deal is not, in fact, anti-competitive. Ironically, Apple’s own entrance to the mobile advertising segment, in the shape of iAd, helped Google’s argument.
“As a result of Apple’s entry (into the market), AdMob’s success to date on the iPhone platform is unlikely to be an accurate predictor of AdMob’s competitive significance going forward, whether AdMob is owned by Google or not” FTC
However the FTC says it will “continue to monitor the mobile marketplace” to ensure that none of the participants – Google and Apple included – are taking advantage of their leverage in a way that harms competition or indeed consumers. The commission has apparently been tracking Google and AdMob’s ongoing rivalry for some time, approving of the “innovation” it spurred; while that might obviously be at risk with Google buying the company, Apple’s new participation has “outweighed” the concerns.
Google paid $750m in back in November 2009 for AdMob. The search giant now says it will “start work right away on bringing AdMob’s and Google’s teams and products together.”