FTC chairman won't recuse herself in Google deal
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U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC)&#160;Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras won&#39;t recuse herself from considering the antitrust implications of&#160;Google&#39;s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick, despite a request from two privacy groups that she do so.Majoras, in a statement Friday, said&#160;the request by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD)&#160;contains &quot;key factual errors.&quot; The two groups filed a petition Wednesday saying Majoras&#39; husband works for a law firm that is advising DoubleClick on the merger before U.S. and European regulators.The Web site for John Majoras&#39; law firm, Jones Day, at one point said it was representing DoubleClick &quot;on the international and U.S. antitrust and competition law aspects&quot; of the Google merger. But Platt Majoras said in her statement that Jones Day has never contacted the FTC about DoubleClick and that she didn&#39;t know it was representing DoubleClick in Europe until earlier this week.A second FTC commissioner whose wife also works for Jones Day also said he won&#39;t recuse himself.The EPIC and CDD petition also is incorrect when it says that John Majoras is an equity partner in Jones Day, Platt Majoras said. John Majoras switched his partnership from equity to nonequity status in January 2006, she said.&quot;I understand that as a fixed-participation partner, his compensation will not be increased or affected by changes in the firm&#8217;s income,&quot; Platt Majoras said.&quot;My husband does not represent any party in the Google-DoubleClick matter. He is in no way connected to the matter, nor are any of the parties to the matter otherwise currently his clients.&quot;EPIC and CDD, in a joint statement, said the FTC has &quot;failed utterly&quot; in its procedures to alert Platt Majoras about potential conflicts of interest. Despite Platt Majoras&#39; claims that she doesn&#39;t have a conflict, John Majoras is an antitrust expert at Jones Day, and one of his key responsibilities is business development in Washington, D.C., they said.Platt Majoras &quot;simply sets out the conclusion that the interests in her participation in this matter outweigh the potential conflict without providing any of the relevant factors that support that conclusion other than that she is the chairman of the commission,&quot; said the statement from EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg and CDD executive director Jeffrey Chester.Jones Day changed its Web site&#160;after the groups pointed out that it said the firm was representing DoubleClick on U.S. antitrust matters, wrote Rotenberg and Chester.&quot;The logical conclusion is that Jones Day ... sought to destroy the relevant evidence,&quot; Rotenberg and Chester wrote.A Jones Day spokesman didn&#39;t immediately have a comment when asked about the EPIC and CDD allegations.Google in April announced plans to acquire ad-serving giant DoubleClick in a $3.1 billion deal. That same month, EPIC, CDD and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) filed a petition asking the FTC to block the deal unless Google made significant changes to its privacy policy. The groups argued that the combined company would have unparalleled access to Web users&#39; personal information.FTC Commissioner William Kovacic also noted, in a Friday statement, that his wife, Kathryn Fenton, is a nonequity partner at Jones Day. The EPIC and CDD petition had not sought to have Kovacic recused.The FTC&#39;s three other commissioners, Pamela Jones Harbour, Jon Leibowitz and J. Thomas Rosch, issued a joint statement, saying that they agreed with the decisions of Platt Majoras and Kovacic not to recuse themselves.&quot;It is evident that these commissioners have at all times taken affirmative steps to conduct themselves in complete conformity with the ethical standards that apply to their positions,&quot; the three said.
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Saying they didn't really know whether or how they might merge their own data with that collected by the company they're paying $3.1 billion to get, Google defended its proposed DoubleClick acquisition to Texas congressman Joe Barton.
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An Australian consumer agency says it won't block Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick because it does not consider the two companies to be competitors.
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Google Inc  so  dominates the online search and advertising market that  regulators are unlikely to challenge a merger of Microsoft Corp   and Yahoo , two antitrust experts said on  Friday.
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NEW YORK/WASHINGTON  - U.S. regulators on Tuesday  did not give Google Inc. the green light it needs to price its  initial public offering, extending the wait for the Web search  giant's eagerly anticipated market debut.
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(InfoWorld) - In its clearest statement of intent so far, Google said that it will compete in an upcoming wireless spectrum auction --Â if the government agrees to certain rules. On Friday, Google sent a letter to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)Â chairman informing him that the company will commit a minimum of $4.6 billion toward the auction, but only if certain conditions are met. Google spelled out those conditions in an earlier filing with the FCC. The billion-dollar commitment could assure the FCC that if it does implement the conditions, it can expect to raise the amount of money it hopes to. "The odds are still against the FCC imposing the conditions Google seeks, but this significantly ups the ante," said Kevin Werbach, an assistant professor of legal studies at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and former counsel for new technology policy with the FCC. Google's proposals are controversial for existing mobile operators, which could decide not to participate in the auction if the rules don't suit them, resulting in potentially less income to the government. On Thursday, Verizon Wireless said that complying with Google's ideas would amount to corporate welfare and bad public policy. The $4.6 billion amount appears to be the figure that Google believes the FCC will require as a minimum price for the spectrum. In its letter to the FCC, Google wrote that it understood that a draft order from the commission had specified that figure. The FCC typically sets a minimum price to sell spectrum; if the minimum isn't met, the agency can cancel the auction. "We're putting consumers' interests first and putting our money where our principles are -- to the tune of $4.6 billion," Chris Sacca, head of special initiatives at Google, wrote on the company's public policy blog. Google says that unless the FCC sets certain rules on the auction, existing large mobile operators will inevitably win the spectrum, and competition in the market will stagnate. In order to prevent that, Google is urging the commission to ensure that end-users can download any applications, services, or content they want. Consumers should also be able to buy a phone and use it on any network. In addition, Google says the winner of the spectrum should be required to allow third parties to resell services over the network on a wholesale basis. Some other groups, such as Frontline Wireless, a company backed by luminaries including former FCC chief Reed Hundt and former Netscape CEO James Barksdale, have proposals similar to Google's. While Google has been vocally urging the FCC to ensure that the spectrum can be used by any device and service, the company has until now hedged on questions about whether or not it plans to bid for the spectrum. The FCC auction for 700-MHz spectrum is expected to happen next year. The frequencies are considered prime for mobile communications because signals sent through them can travel far and can penetrate walls better than higher frequencies. Much of the similar spectrum is already spoken for, so this auction is considered a rare opportunity. In a perhaps related announcement, on Friday U.K., femtocell maker Ubiquisys said that Google has invested in the company. Femtocells are small base stations that can be used in homes or offices to improve mobile phone coverage. Ubiquisys' current products operate over 3G networks.
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Despite calls from privacy groups that she recuse herself from an upcoming review of  Google's planned $3.1 billion buyout of DoubleClick, FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras has rejected the idea.
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Representative Joe Barton of Texas said on Wednesday that Google had rebuffed requests by his staff for a meeting as part of an investigation into the companyâs $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick.
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The California network-equipment maker says the $2.2 billion deal to be acquired by a Chinese telecom won't proceed, because federal authorities reviewing the proposed sale said security issues can't be resolved.
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The Web site of a law firm employing the husband of U.S. Federal Trade Commission chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras contradicts an FTC explanation that Majoras has no conflict of interest in reviewing DoubleClick&#39;s $3.1 billion acquisition by Google, two privacy groups said Thursday.
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A U.S. District Court judge yesterday declined to address a petition by Google that asked the government to extend its antitrust oversight of Microsoft.
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Neelie Kroes, the European Commission&#39;s next competition chief, won&#39;t rule on three pending antitrust cases to avoid conflicts of interest that have prompted criticism from lawmakers.
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer rebuffed&#160;Google&#39;s accusations&#160;that an acquisition of Yahoo would be anticompetitive.
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The online specialist endures a rocky shareholder meeting.
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Google took a step closer to its acquisition of online advertising server DoubleClick on Thursday, when the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved the sale. One major hurdle still remaining is approval by the European Commission.
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InfoWorld - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission will not try to block Google's acquisition of online ad-serving vendor DoubleClick, the agency said Thursday.
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Federal regulators did not authorize Google&#39;s initial public offering to proceed as of late Tuesday, a deadline the company set on the road to its highly awaited public offering.