I blogged Sunday that the EU approval of Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick was expected to come through this week. As predicted the deal did go through today. Big congrats go out to the DoubleClick Performics Team!
Here’s part of Google’s official Press Release:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., (March 11, 2008) – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that it has completed its acquisition of DoubleClick, a company that offers online ad serving and management technology to advertisers, web publishers and ad agencies.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said, “We are thrilled that our acquisition of DoubleClick has closed. With DoubleClick, Google now has the leading display ad platform, which will enable us to rapidly bring to market advances in technology and infrastructure that will dramatically improve the effectiveness, measurability and performance of digital media for publishers, advertisers and agencies, while improving the relevance of advertising for users.”

The Google blog talks about potential DoubleClick layoffs. “As with most mergers, there may be reductions in headcount. We expect these to take place in the U.S. and possibly in other regions as well. We know that DoubleClick is built on the strength of its people. For this reason we’ll strive to minimize the impact of this process on all of our clients and employees.”

DoubleClick Performics issued a statement of reassurance by email today saying: “The closing of the transaction will have no immediate impact on your relationship with DoubleClick Performics. We will continue to operate as a separate business unit as we review product integration opportunities.”

Once again, I think this could create some big changes in our industry and most definitely will have a very positive impact on the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network. CJ and Linkshare have an interesting year ahead of them.

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