The European Commission has approved - with conditions - Internet giant America Online's $135 billion (€154.89 million) acquisition of media company Time Warner. Following a four-month examination the Commission approved the merger after AOL offered to sever all structural links with German media group Bertelsmann.

"The proposed undertakings will prevent AOL from having access to Europe's leading source of music publishing rights, thereby eliminating the risk of dominance in the emerging markets for online delivery of music over the Internet and software-based music players," the Commission said. To ease the Commission's competition concerns, the firms said Bertelsmann would leave the AOL Europe joint venture as well as the French joint venture AOL Compuserve.