Facebook’s $19 billion bid for WhatsApp won the approval of the European Union’s competition regulator on Friday.

“We have carefully reviewed this proposed acquisition and come to the conclusion that it would not hamper competition,” European Commission Vice President in charge of competition policy, Joaquín Almunia, said.

While the commission looked into the potential problems of the merger putting more data about users in one place, it only considered how that could hamper competition in the online advertising market. “Any privacy-related concerns flowing from the increased concentration of data within the control of Facebook as a result of the transaction do not fall within the scope of EU competition law,” it said.

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