Google Goes to Capitol Hill Over DoubleClick
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Google is finding itself increasingly having to explain its planned acquisition of DoubleClick, and is now being asked to testify in September as part of a broader Congressional inquiry into advertising industry consolidation.
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Internet search leader Google Inc.  is open to new acquisitions and remains hopeful it can close the $3.1 billion purchase of Web ad supplier DoubleClick by end-2007 despite a U.S. federal probe, its CEO said on Wednesday.
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Privacy advocate Marc Rotenberg contends that Google's purchase of DoubleClick will give it broad amounts of data about individual Internet users, with few legal limits on what it could do with that data.
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The U.S. government still needs to block or impose conditions on Google Inc.&#39;s acquisition of online advertising server DoubleClick Inc., despite Google&#39;s call for global privacy standards, three privacy groups said Monday.
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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Thursday approved Google's $3.1 billion purchase of DoubleClick, saying the much-criticized deal did not pose a threat to competition in Internet advertising.
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WASHINGTON _ Slowly but surely, the government is getting Googled.  Two years ago, the Google staff in Washington was one person _ Alan Davidson, an expert in technology law.
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Google has a problem -- a good one.
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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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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has teamed with public relations and marketing agency Burson-Marsteller on a campaign to garner industry support for asking regulators to scrutinize and potentially blockÂ the proposed merger of Google and DoubleClick. [ Plus:Â DoubleClick launches mobile ad platformÂ ] Called the Initiative for Competitive Online Marketplace, or iCOMP, the group's mission, according to its Web site, is "to highlight important principles in online services and begin important industry discussions around copyright, privacy, and competition." So far, Microsoft and Burson-Marsteller seem to be the only companies behind the initiative, though Gavin Grant, the U.K. chairman of Burson-Marsteller, said the names of companies and organizations that have signed iCOMP's online petition should be listed on the Web site by the end of Monday. Microsoft and Burson-Marsteller were planning to go public with iCOMP in a few weeks, but published reports broke news of the initiative Monday. On behalf of Microsoft, Burston-Marsteller has been sending out e-mails for several weeks to companies, organizations, consumer advocacy groups, and the like who are interested in "creating a competitive and dynamic online marketplace," Grant said Monday. Those companies have been asked to review the Web site and to sign a petition based on a set of principles inspired by concerns raised around the Google-DoubleClick deal. Grant declined to name any of the more than 100 companies or organizations that were contacted, and said he did not know if Google was among them. Google did not respond to requests for comment Monday. Grant did not explicitly come out and say that iCOMP was formed to directly block the Google-DoubleClick merger. Microsoft and Burson-Marsteller are interested in fostering a discussion to ensure that the digital marketplace remains competitive and they hope that other companies and consumer interest groups that have raised concerns about the merger will join them, he said. However, the iCOMP petition clearly points to the group's interest in taking a stand against the Google-DoubleClick deal, which opponents claim would give Google control of 80 percent of ads served on the Internet. For example, the first principle on the iCOMP petition asks signers to agree that "regulators should carefully scrutinize any transactions in the online advertising sector that would create or enhance a dominant market position, substantially reduce existing or future competition, or leave advertisers, online publishers, or consumers with fewer options." Google announced plans to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in April, a deal that immediately hadÂ competitors and industry groups crying foul over how much of the online advertising market the combined company would ownÂ and also how much access to consumer information it would have.Â U.S. government agencies scrutinizing the deal include the Federal Trade CommissionÂ and two congressional committees. Google has defended itself in blog posts saying that competitors like Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL also are buying up companies to help them boost online advertising and consumer marketing strategies. The company claims its move to buy DoubleClick has not prevented other companies from competing. Microsoft naturally doesn't see it that way. In an interview Monday company spokesman Jack Evans was more willing to voice his company's concern about the merger and to link iCOMP to Google-DoubleClick opposition, acknowledging that without that merger on the table, there would likely be no iCOMP. "Like others, we believe this proposed merger raises serious questions about the future of competition in the online advertising market as well as about consumer privacy and copyright protection," Evans said. When asked aboutÂ Microsoft's own anticompetitive practices, something for which the European Commission recently upheld a $613 million fineÂ against it, he said that Microsoft never attempted to purchase a competitor to become a leader in a market, something Microsoft and others believe Google is doing with DoubleClick. "It's one thing to earn your way into a dominant position in the marketplace, it's another thing to buy your competitors to lock up the marketplace," he said. Though there are legitimate concerns about privacy and competition to be had over Google-DoubleClick, to some, the formation of iCOMP might appear to be sour grapes on the part of Microsoft. The company was rumored to be in a bidding war with Google for DoubleClick, hoping to acquire the company to boost its own advertising revenue.Â Microsoft eventually settled for a $6 billion purchase of interactive digital services firm aQuantive, a deal that closed last month. And it wasn't so long ago that Microsoft was in the position of being scrutinized for consumer-privacy issues surrounding a Web services initiative called Hailstorm. The company in 2001 proposed Hailstorm as a central repository it would maintain for online user identity so Web users would have easy access to their personal information for online transactions. Hailstorm didn't fly with consumers or other companies because no one wanted Microsoft to be the sole owner of people's personal information.
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Google executives are expected to testify about their planned $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick, a deal facing scrutiny from federal antitrust regulators.
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BRUSSELS - Google Inc. is confident that its $3.1 billion bid for online ad tracker DoubleClick will win over European and US regulators, a company executive said yesterday - even as advertisers expressed concerns the deal will shrink competition.
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GoogleÂ on Tuesday confirmed that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is investigating itsÂ proposed $3.1 billion purchaseÂ of online advertising seller DoubleClick.ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
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Two privacy groups asked the chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission to recuse herself from the commissionâs review of Googleâs merger with DoubleClick.
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InfoWorld - U.S. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras is consulting with the agency's ethics officer to see if she should recuse herself from a review ofÂ Google's planned acquisition of online ad network DoubleClick.
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The Federal Trade Commission has opened a preliminary antitrust investigation into Google's planned $3.1 billion purchase of the online advertising company DoubleClick , an industry executive briefed on the agency's plans said yesterday.
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Google's proposed merger with online advertising server DoubleClick would create a giant that would control a huge portion of online advertising and hurt the Internet, opponents of the deal told U.S. lawmakers Thursday.
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A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee has opened an investigation into Google'sÂ proposed $3.1 billion acquisitionÂ of online advertising seller DoubleClick.