The waiting is over: the EU has allowed Google to buy DoubleClick, for a mere US$3.1 billion. Everybody is writing about it, but the French are the only ones I’ve seen who called it what it is right in the heading: “Europe allows Google to dominate online advertising”.

With the acquisition of DoubleClick, Google is securing a huge chunk of the online advertising market, which will become increasingly important in the years to come. It also secures a lot of knowledge about consumer behaviour, a fact that democracy advocates find alarming.

I thought that this was coming. I don’t think it is horrible, because I believe that Google will use consumer information responsibly. They won’t be able to do otherwise. After all, the net is still a self-regulating beast.

Read more about this deal here, and tell me what you think!