Washington
– The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has solicited sworn declarations from
Google’s (NASD: GOOG) competitors, on the potential for reduction in competition in the mobile
ad market due to its acquisition of AdMob, Bloomberg reported.
People familiar
with the matter told Bloomberg that the move could indicate the government may
challenge the deal.
Google initially announced its $750 million deal to
purchase AdMob, a mobile display advertising provider, in November 2009.
"It’s
difficult to envision a scenario where this development, if true, is positive
for Google-AdMob," Thomas Ensign, counsel in the antitrust, competition
and trade practice of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP in Washington, told
Bloomberg.
"But it doesn’t necessarily mean the agency is going to
challenge the deal."
Related Links:
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(Bloomberg)
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(DMW previous coverage)
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for Google. It all depends what the FTC is asking the other as networks, assuming the reports are true, of course.
No one really knows the true market share of the mobile ad networks. The only way to do this is by revenue – every other measure is flawed for one reason or another – but no mobile ad network reveals revenue – (even in secret to analysts, ask them if you don’t believe us).
However no one would refuse to tell the FTC their revenues, right? So why doesn’t the FTC do itself, Google/AdMob and everyone else a favor and request those numbers, work out the market shares, publish it and then we can put the thing to rest once and for all. We wrote to the FTC in December suggesting this a while back with a list of the 14 ad networks to contact first (not that we heard anything of course), but fingers crossed this will be part of the investigation (assuming there is one of course).