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We reported back in July that Google has acquired the Russian contextual ad company Begun (owned by Rambler Media).  This was supposed to be Google's big step in to the Russian ad market.  However, the marriage of Google Adsense and Begun has been blocked by the Russian government based on a potential eventuality that Google's been accused of many times, monopoly.

The acquisition last July was pending approval from the Russian Federal Antitrust Service and as it turns out, the request has been denied.  The Russian FAS official reason according to Profy was: the authorities claim that Google has not submitted the complete information on all the personnel of the company working in Russia. Absence of this information was supposed to prevent the antitrust agency from evaluating the consequences of such a deal correctly.

The official statement of the Russian Federal Antitrust Service  has been published by news agencies in the country.

In submitted by the applicant together with the application documents in FAS Russia no documented information about individuals that may influence the business group Google, as well as a complete list of persons belonging to the group Google, including registered and / or carrying on activities outside Russia. The lack of complete information about the group Google does not fully reflect the effects of the transaction, but may also indicate a limitation of competition due to a decrease in the number of business entities in the relevant product market is not falling into one group of person.

Google has not yet commented on the rejection and will be saving their $140 million for further acquisitions in Russia or other markets they might want to foray into. 

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