It's of strictly no surprise that the Federal Trade Commission is looking into Microsoft Corp.’s $6 billion deal for aQuantive Inc., since the purchase is subject to Hart-Scott-Rodino review. And frankly it would be shocking if the agency moved to block the deal. Antitrust regulators tend to step gingerly when it comes to taking action against technology mergers because it's notoriously tricky to prove that such transactions harm competition, as anyone will attest who remembers the shellacking the Justice Department took in court a couple years ago when it tried to halt Oracle Corp.'s purchase of PeopleSoft Inc. It's not that antitrust lawyers don't get tech — it's that many judges, the ultimate arbiters of whether mergers are approved, don't. In practice, that means antitrust enforcers like to have a near slam-dunk case before they're willing to invest the time and energy (not to mention taking the professional risk) to challenge a merger.

Even deals that on paper appear to pose clear anticompetitive concerns often ultimately get a pass. The FTC last year tried to block Brocade Communications Systems Inc.'s $735 million deal for McData Corp. But the agency ultimately backed down even though the storage area network companies would together control 70% of the market for certain computer switches.

Forget that, unlike Brocade and McData, Microsoft and aQuantive do different things — regulators would have to feel mighty sure of themselves to try to derail a deal in a market as fragmented and fluid as online advertising. The "barriers to entry" on the Internet are low, meaning the Microsoft-aQuantive tie-up won't inhibit new competitors from springing up.

The wildcard, of course, is the perception — real or imagined — that Google Inc.'s $3.1 billion purchase of DoubleClick Inc., also under FTC review, Yahoo! Inc.'s $680 million deal for Right Media Inc. and WPP Group plc's $649 million buy of 24/7 Real Media Inc. collectively pose some kind of threat to privacy. With the political winds picking up in Washington ahead of next year's election, deals can suddenly become hostage to pols trawling for headlines. —Alain Sherter

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