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Ben Woods
Europe EditorBen is a technology journalist with a specialism in mobile devices and a geeky love of mobile spectrum issues. Ben used to be a professional Ben is a technology journalist with a specialism in mobile devices and a geeky love of mobile spectrum issues. Ben used to be a professional online poker player. You can contact him via Twitter or on Google+.
Facebook’s $19 billion purchase of messaging company WhatsApp has been given the go-ahead by the European Commission.
While we didn’t really expect the Europe’s antitrust regulators to try and stand in the way of the deal, Facebook has now been informed that it can go ahead and finalize proceedings despite both companies holding massive market share with their respective services.
“We have carefully reviewed this proposed acquisition and come to the conclusion that it would not hamper competition in this dynamic and growing market. Consumers will continue to have a wide choice of consumer communications apps,”Joaquín Almunia, EC Vice President in charge of competition policy, said in a statement.
➤ Mergers: Commission approves acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook [Europa.eu]
Image credit: Getty Images
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