Consumer Group Questions Google-Doubleclick Deal
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European group asks for an investigation into how Google's DoubleClick acquisition could affect privacy rights.
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Google-DoubleClick probe just the beginning Two weeks after the Federal Trade Commission opened an anti-trust investigation into Googleâs proposed acquisition of online ad company DoubleClick, The Wall Street Journal reports that the FTC plans to examine deals by Microsoft and Yahoo! as well.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - A European consumer group has complained that Google's proposed acquisition of online ad broker DoubleClick could hurt privacy rights due to the massive amount of data the companies would hold. In a letter, the Bureau EuropÃ©en des Unions de Consommateurs (BEUC) has asked the European Commission and other authorities to investigate how the deal would affect consumers. Google, whichÂ bought DoubleClickÂ in April for $3.1 billion, refuted the assertion that the deal will harm privacy. "Not surprisingly, we don't agree," said Rachel Whetstone, Google's director of European corporate communications, on Thursday. The company thinks the deal will lead to lower priced ad services for both publishers and advertisers, and the delivery of more relevant ads to users, she said. Google's deal with DoubleClick also prompted scrutiny. The U.S. TheÂ Federal Trade Commission is investigatingÂ the deal following a complaint filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Center for Digital Democracy, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. The groups are concerned how Google will protect its data and users' privacy, including how it will handle cookies and other data that could potentially be used to identify Internet users. The European Commission has not yet been formally notified of the deal by Google or DoubleClick, a Commission spokeswoman said. Acquisitions can fall under the purview of national competition authorities or the European Commission, depending on where the companies do business, their turnover and other factors, the spokeswoman said. Â
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Congress plans to scrutinize Google Inc.'s proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick Inc. to gauge the potential impacts on consumer privacy and competition in the online advertising business.
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Google filed with the European Union competition regulator on Friday for permission to buy rival DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, the European Commission said.
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Google  said it would file on  Friday with the European Commission for permission to acquire  rival DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.
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Google said it would file on Friday with the European Commission for permission to acquire rival DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.
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Google has responded to a U.S. congressman&#39;s series of questions about its privacy practices, with the company defending its use of consumer data.Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, sent a letter to Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt Dec. 12, after privacy groups raised questions about the implications of Google&#39;s US$3.1 billion acquisition of online ad server DoubleClick.During an earlier meeting with Schmidt, Barton had &quot;voiced concern regarding the potential consumer protection and privacy implications of the merger,&quot; Barton said in his letter. &quot;I believe Google&#39;s participation in our research into and consideration of the consumer protection implications of a merger of any online search engine and any behavioral or targeted advertising firms is vital to crafting sound national policy.&quot;In response to Barton&#39;s questions about the privacy implications of the merger, Google repeated its calls for Congress to pass a national privacy law that would create a &quot;uniform framework for privacy.&quot;&quot;Concerns about online privacy cannot be solved by one company alone,&quot; said the Google letter, by Alan Davidson, the company&#39;s head of U.S. public policy. &quot;Moreover, both technologies and best practices for protecting privacy are changing rapidly. We therefore encourage you and your staff to ask these questions of other providers of online services.&quot;Barton, ranking minority member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, had asked Google to respond to his letter before Dec. 18, about when the U.S. Federal Trade Commission was expected to complete its examination of the antitrust implications of the merger. Google&#39;s response was dated Friday, one day after the FTC announced it would not block the DoubleClick acquisition. Google hosted Barton&#39;s staff at its headquarters Wednesday and Thursday, however.The FTC approval is the last U.S. hurdle for the merger; the European Union is still reviewing it.Barton&#39;s letter asked several questions about Google&#39;s privacy practices, including how long Google retains search queries, e-mail drafted on Google&#39;s Gmail service and Web histories. Barton also asked why Google needed to retain data.The IP (Internet Protocol) addresses associated with search queries will be partially deleted after 18 months, as Google previously has announced, the letter said. In other services, such as Gmail and Google Web History, the privacy preferences are customized by individual users, the letter said.Google retains data about searches as a way to improve its search algorithms and to improve services such as the spell checking feature on Google search, the letter said. The company also uses the data to fight click fraud and other malicious efforts, the letter said.Barton also asked if Google plans to merge its consumer data with DoubleClick&#39;s after the merger. He asked what was the benefit of the merger if Google did not plan to merge data.&quot;We are new to the third-party display ad serving business, so we have not yet decided whether or how we would merge DoubleClick and Google data,&quot; Davidson&#39;s letter said.The merger would create &quot;numerous efficiencies&quot; not related to DoubleClick&#39;s data, Davidson added. &quot;Acquiring DoubleClick&#39;s expertise in display ad serving will assist Google in its efforts to design an integrated interface for advertisers to manage their texts and display advertising campaigns,&quot; the letter said. &quot;In addition, the acquisition will allow Google to provide advertisers with better metrics for the display ads the place in our advertising network.&quot;
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InfoWorld - The U.S. government still needs to block or impose conditions on Google&#39;s acquisition of online advertising server DoubleClick, despite Google&#39;s call for global privacy standards, three privacy groups said Monday.
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WASHINGTON -- Congress plans to scrutinize Google Inc.'s proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick Inc. to gauge the potential impacts on consumer privacy and competition in the online advertising business.
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A European consumer group has complained that Google Inc.'s proposed acquisition of online ad broker DoubleClick Inc. could hurt privacy rights due to the massive amount of data the companies would hold.
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US regulators Thursday cleared a plan by Google to buy online advertising giant DoubleClick, a tie-up that has sparked concerns about privacy risks and still faces a challenge in the European Union.
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The Federal Trade Commission has asked Google for more details about its proposed $3.1 billion purchase of online advertising company DoubleClick as part of an investigation into whether the deal raises antitrust concerns, a Google executive said yesterday.
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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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(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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European Union antitrust regulators asked online advertising companies whether prices would rise if Google's proposed $3.1 billion takeover of DoubleClick is approved, according to an E.U. questionnaire.
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WASHINGTON -- The chairman of a Senate antitrust panel said Thursday that Google Inc.'s proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of online advertising firm DoubleClick Inc. "warrants close examination" by federal regulators.