The commission's 4-1 vote, with Pamela Jones Harbour dissenting, was "very well reasoned," despite cries form critics who called for the recusal of Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras and voiced anti-competitive and privacy concerns, he said.

"People might advocate that the FTC become the super-regulator of the Internet but that would stifle the kind of innovation that is critical to the growth of these industries," Balto said. The agency took the privacy fears seriously and decided that "the marketplace is going to be the best discipline to make sure Google protects users' privacy."

The European Union's ongoing review of the pairing might be a different story because regulators there have "much broader concerns," Balto said. EU officials have scheduled a January hearing where privacy officials, consumer groups and Web firms will testify.