Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The European Union's review of Google Inc.'s $3.1 billion bid for DoubleClick Inc. will focus on the competition aspects of the deal, not privacy issues, EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes said.

Google, which runs the most popular Internet search engine, announced the proposed purchase of the New York-based online advertiser in April to bolster its sales of Internet ads that include pictures and videos. The European Commission, the EU's antitrust regulator, said it will decide by Oct. 26 whether to approve or take a closer look at the deal.

``We are looking at the influence on competition and that's it,'' Kroes told reporters in Frankfurt when asked whether the commission is studying privacy issues concerning Google's bid for DoubleClick.

Consumer groups in the U.S. and Europe are concerned about the deal's effect on users' private data. The European lobbying group BEUC wrote Kroes a letter in June, saying that the ``unprecedented and unmatched databases of user profiles'' seem to be ``in clear violation of users' privacy rights.''

Google, based in Mountain View, California, generates revenue from selling text-based ads that appear next to search results. DoubleClick's two main products help Web publishers and companies manage online advertising. The software handles so- called display ads, which include graphics or animation.

Google is already under scrutiny by EU data privacy officials. A European data protection agency, made up of experts from 30 European countries, warned Google in May that it may breach privacy rules by storing data for as long as two years.

The group said yesterday that it will make a decision in a few months on the privacy policies of Google and search engines run by Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

Google's plan also faces an antitrust probe by U.S. regulators after Yahoo!, Microsoft and AT&T Inc. expressed concerns that the combination would hurt competition in the $28.8 billion global online advertising market.

To contact the reporters on this story: Aaron Kirchfeld in Frankfurt at akirchfeld@bloomberg.net; Matthew Newman in Brussels at Mnewman6@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 11, 2007 09:59 EDT