Brussels, 22/01/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 22 January, the European Commission cleared the proposed creation of a joint venture between the four German online marketing agencies, SevenOne Media (71m), a subsidiary of ProSiebenSat1, G + J Electronic Media Service (EMS) and IP Deutschland (IP), both subsidiaries of the Bertelsmann group,, and Tomorrow Focus Portal (TFP), a subsidiary of Hubert Burda Media. All four companies are active in the sales of online advertising space on behalf of websites operated by their parent companies.
The proposed joint venture would develop and sell a new product to allow advertisers to reach better defined target groups of internet users whose profiles would be created based on anonymous data collected throughout a large network of participating websites. The activity of the joint venture would be limited to the area of standard online display advertising.
The Commission examined the effects of the proposed transaction on the markets for online advertising as well as for intermediation of online advertising space. It concluded that the proposed concentration was unlikely to raise competition concerns given the parties' low market shares in online advertising and the presence of strong competitors like Google. For more information on the case go to:
http: //ec.europa.eu/competition/mergers/cases/index/m113.html#m_5676 (L.C./transl.rt)