Microsoft News Tracker

Despite Microsoft’s best efforts, Google’s acquisition of Doubleclick was completed today as the European Union gave its approval. The key graph from Eric Schmidt’s blog post:

Advertisers and publishers who work with us have long asked that we complement our search and content-based text advertising with display advertising capabilities. DoubleClick gives Google the leading platform for display advertising, enabling us to rapidly bring advances to the market in technology and infrastructure that will dramatically improve the effectiveness, measurability and performance of digital media for publishers, advertisers and agencies.

I still think that getting into the banner ad biz is a step backward, but it does make Google a one stop Web advertising shop.