Geico Wants To Restrict Google Ads
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Geico Corp. yesterday urged a federal judge in Alexandria to issue an injunction prohibiting Internet giant Google Inc. from selling ads based on searches using the Washington insurance giant&#39;s
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trademark infringement suit filed against Google by Geico, the Auto Insurer owned by Berkshire Hathaway. In the trial, which started on Monday, Geico gave a plea that the Google&#39;s policy of allowing competitors
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Google says it will work to make it less lucrative to tie up millions of Internet addresses using a loophole in a practice known as domain-name tasting. It plans to keep those domain names from legitimate individuals and businesses.
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A federal judge on Wednesday handed online search engine Google Inc.  a victory in a trademark infringement case on Wednesday, ruling that when users searched for insurer GEICO, Google could display rivals as well.
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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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(InfoWorld) - GoogleÂ has launched a blog focused on U.S. government legislation and regulation, one sign of the company's growing interest in Washington, D.C., affairs. The blog is part of Google's efforts to step up its focus on the U.S. government since early 2005. Last year, it was one of the leading Web-based companiesÂ calling on Congress to pass net neutrality rulesÂ that would prohibit broadband carriers from blocking or slowing Web content offered by their competitors. This year, Google has joined a debate on how the U.S. Federal Communications Commission should auction 60MHz of spectrum in the 700MHz band being vacated by U.S. television stations. Google has called on the FCC toÂ open up biddingÂ to small companies through real-time auctions and designate a chunk of the spectrum for wireless broadband services. Google is also focused on issues such as privacy and copyright protection, said a post on the blog Monday. Google launched the blog internally two months ago but opened it to the public Monday. Google has recentlyÂ complained to the U.S. Department of JusticeÂ about what it sees as antitrust violations in Microsoft's Vista operating system. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission in May also began investigating Google's proposedÂ $3.1 billion purchaseÂ of online advertising seller DoubleClick. Google now has eight senior policy and public relations employees and four support employees in Washington, compared to just one public policy staffer in early 2005. "We're seeking to do public policy advocacy in a Googley way," Andrew McLaughlin, Google's director of public policy and government affairs, wrote on the blog. "We want our users to be part of the effort, to know what we're saying and why, and to help us refine and improve our policy positions and advocacy strategies. With input and ideas from our users, we'll surely do a better job of fighting for our common interests. "This blog is part of the dialogue we're hoping to foster."
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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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Drawing upon its clout as the Internet's most powerful company, Google Inc. is calling on businesses and regulators throughout the world to set international standards for protecting consumer privacy online and offline.
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The head of the Federal Trade Commission said Friday she won't remove herself from an antitrust review of Google Inc.'s purchase of online advertising company DoubleClick, rebuffing requests from privacy groups opposed to the transaction.
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(InfoWorld) - 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. The merger, proposed in April, would create "extreme market concentration," said Scott Cleland, chairman of Netcompetition.org, an advocacy group representing large broadband providers. The merger would leave online advertisers with "no real competitive choice," he told the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith argued that the marriage of Google and DoubleClick will allow Google to control 70 percent of the search-based advertising market and 80 percent of the online display advertising market. Smith, whose company is still under court supervision for its ownÂ 2002 antitrust settlement with the U.S. government, suggested regulators should reject the Google-DoubleClick merge on antitrust grounds. "What are the economic consequences of allowing the largest company in online advertising to acquire its most significant competitor?" Smith said. "If Google and DoubleClick are allowed to merge, Google will become the overwhelmingly dominant pipeline for all forms of online advertising." But David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, argued that DoubleClick has a different business model than Google. "We are confident that our purchase of DoubleClick does not raise antitrust issues because of one simple fact: Google and DoubleClick do not compete with each other," he said. "DoubleClick does not buy ads, sell ads, or buy or sell advertising space. We sell ads, DoubleClick delivers ads." Microsoft's estimates of Google and DoubleClick controlling 80 percent of the display ad market is a "made-up number," Drummond added. A little more than a month afterÂ Google announced plans to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, Microsoft announced that it would saidÂ acquire aQuantive, a digital marketing services agency, for $6 billion.Â YahooÂ andÂ AOLÂ have recently announced their own acquisitions in the online advertising space. Cleland argued that the Google-DoubleClick deal represents the biggest threat to competition in online advertising. He called the U.S. government's antitrust review "a watershed moment for Internet competition." Google's own "uniquely monopolistic" mission statement says it wants to "organize the world's information," Cleland added. "No other entity currently has such a naked ambition to control or effectively corner the market for any of the world's commodities, let alone all the world's information," he said. In addition to the antitrust issues raised at the hearing, Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, voiced concerns that the merger will have a huge effect on consumer privacy. The combined company would control a huge database of customer data, Rotenberg said. Regulators in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe "appear to be in agreement that there is no merger that poses a more significant threat to online privacy than Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick," Rotenberg said. "This is going to be a real problem for the Internet if it's allowed to go forward." Google believes "deeply in protecting online users' privacy," Drummond answered. Google has announced plans to make IP addresses and cookies anonymous, and the company is working on several other privacy initiatives, he said. Senator Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, asked Google's Drummond how the company can complain about the lack of broadband providers when its merger could create a dominant Internet advertising provider. Companies wishing to advertise online have "many, many choices," Drummond said, while most consumers have the choice of one or two broadband providers. But Hatch also suggested to Microsoft's Smith that Google could lose advertising market share if a better search engine comes along. "Where is the antitrust problem?" he said. "Why not just build a better product?" The online advertising market is consolidating rapidly, Smith said. Companies wishing to advertise online will soon be left with one to three choices, he predicted.
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A company that sells Internet domain names is facing criticisms for holding some in reserve as a consumer-protection measure, a move that also prevents interested parties from shopping around for better prices.
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A federal judge in Alexandria, Va., dismissed a crucial claim yesterday in the trademark infringement suit brought against Google by Geico, the auto insurance company owned by Berkshire Hathaway.
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Google Inc, the world's Web search  leader, told U.S. Senate lawmakers on Thursday the company is  pursuing new technologies to protect the privacy of Internet  users as it seeks to acquire advertising company DoubleClick  Inc.
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Two privacy groups are stepping up the pressure on the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), saying the agency has an obligation to consider privacy concerns as it prepares to rule on the antitrust implications of&#160;Google&#39;s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick.The executive directors of&#160;the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) repeated their call for the FTC to impose privacy conditions if it approves the merger. It appears that an FTC decision on the $3.1 billion acquisition is &quot;imminent,&quot; said Jeffrey Chester, CDD&#39;s executive director.FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz in October suggested the FTC&#39;s review of the deal had to be about competition questions, not privacy, but Chester disagreed during a press conference on Tuesday. One of the FTC&#39;s main duties is to protect consumer privacy, and the merger of the number one search provider with the number one ad server raises serious privacy questions, he said.Google&#39;s contention that there are no major privacy concerns is &quot;absurd on the face of it,&quot; Chester said. DoubleClick says it serves 8 billion online ads and processes 964GB of Web server log files each day, he said.&quot;It would be a violation of trust, in effect abuse of their own role, in not addressing an issue of such concern as the data-collection apparatus within the ever-growing behemoth,&quot; Chester said. &quot;If they&#39;re really the agency to protect consumer privacy, they will act to protect privacy. If they fail to act to protect privacy, they have basically put up a flag to American consumers saying, &#39;We surrender your data.&#39;&quot;Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich repeated Google&#39;s position that the merger would have positive effects.&quot;This acquisition is good for consumers, advertisers and Web site publishers, and we continue to be confident that it will be approved,&quot; he said. &quot;I would also point out what the FTC itself has said about privacy not playing a role in its review of the deal.&quot;Last week, the two groups&#160;asked FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras to recuse herself from the decision on the merger, saying her husband works for a law firm that is advising DoubleClick on the deal in the U.S.&#160;Majoras declined Monday to recuse herself, saying that her husband isn&#39;t directly involved in the DoubleClick deal and that the Jones Day law firm is advising the company only before European regulators.An FTC spokesman wasn&#39;t immediately available for comment.Chester and EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg repeated their calls for Majoras to recuse herself. Jones Day&#39;s Web site, until recently, said it was advising DoubleClick on the deal in the U.S. as well as Europe, they said.But the most important step the FTC can take is to impose privacy conditions on the merger, Rotenberg said. The case for a privacy review &quot;is very clear,&quot; he said.Chester agreed. &quot;Are they concerned about Americans&#39; privacy, or are they going to give Google a pass?&quot; he said.
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Nearly lost in the news about the&#160;U.S. Federal Trade Commission&#39;s (FTC) approval on Thursday of Google&#39;s acquisition of DoubleClick&#160;was another action by the agency: The publication of a proposed set of privacy principles governing online behavioral advertising.The release of the privacy principles is an important and welcome step, said Peter Swire, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, and a law professor at Ohio State University. Although some privacy groups blasted the FTC for approving Google&#39;s DoubleClick deal, the acquisition has helped place focus on the entire online advertising industry&#39;s privacy practices, Swire said.&quot;It&#39;s good that the FTC is shining a spotlight on this industry,&quot; Swire said Friday. &quot;Online advertising is in its second boom. They&#39;re trying lots of new techniques; some of those techniques have privacy problems.&quot;The FTC hosted a workshop on behavioral advertising and privacy in November. The agency&#39;s proposed privacy principles, a series of &quot;self-regulatory&quot; steps the FTC is recommending for online advertisers, come in part from that workshop.Among the FTC&#39;s proposals:-- Web sites that collect information for behavioral advertising should provide a &quot;clear, consumer-friendly, and prominent statement&quot; about the reason for collecting that data. Consumers should be able to choose whether they will allow that information to be collected.-- Any company that collects or stores consumer data for behavioral advertising should provide &quot;reasonable security&quot; and should keep data only as long as necessary to fulfill legitimate business or law enforcement needs.-- Companies should only collect sensitive data for behavioral advertising if they obtain express consent from the consumer.The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a group focused on online privacy and civil liberties, also praised the FTC for releasing its privacy principles. The principles are a &quot;clear sign that the commission does not believe that the industry&#39;s current self-regulation framework is sufficient to protect consumers today,&#8221; CDT Deputy Director Ari Schwartz said in a statement.CDT also called on Google to &quot;step up and make a clear, public statement about its plans for proactively protecting consumer privacy.&quot; Consumer privacy in the behavioral advertising market remains an industrywide concern that requires the focus of consumers, policymakers and companies, CDT said.The release of the privacy principles should send a signal to online advertisers, said Leslie Harris, CDT&#39;s president. &quot;In releasing these principles, the FTC hasn&#39;t closed the door to other options,&quot; she said in a statement. &quot;Self-regulation is part of the solution for protecting consumer privacy, but clearly self-regulation hasn&#39;t lived up to its promises.... We&#39;ll need a rigorous mix of self-regulation backed by regulatory enforcement.&quot;Other privacy groups criticized the FTC for its ruling allowing Google&#39;s acquisition of DoubleClick to move forward. The agency had reason to act on privacy concerns raised by the merger and failed, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), one of three privacy groups that asked the FTC to block the merger or impose privacy conditions.The FTC could have established &quot;the necessary safeguards for personal data and competition that could have allowed a global [privacy] framework to emerge,&quot; Rotenberg said. &quot;[The FTC&#39;s] sole purpose is to protect the public interest. It failed to do so ... in a case that will have far-reaching implications for the Internet economy and the privacy rights of American consumers.&quot;Joseph Turow, a communication professor at the University of Pennsylvania, agreed. The European Union is still investigating the Google-DoubleClick deal, with a decision not due until April, and it is likely that regulators there will take a harder look at privacy issues, he said.Consumer tracking and privacy should be part of the FTC&#39;s antitrust review when it looks at online advertising deals, he said. &quot;You can&#39;t talk about the digital advertising market today without talking about competition in targeting Americans,&quot; he said.Google supports the FTC&#39;s efforts to create privacy guidelines, David Drummond, the company&#39;s senior vice president for corporate development and chief legal officer, said in a blog post. &quot;The FTC&#39;s decision publicly affirms what we and numerous independent analysts have been saying for months: Our acquisition does not threaten competition in what is a robust, innovative, and quickly evolving online advertising space,&quot; Drummond wrote. &quot;In fact, we firmly believe the transaction will increase competition and bring substantial benefits to consumers, web publishers, and online advertisers.&quot;Critics failed to show specific privacy harms, added Thomas Lenard, president of iGrowthGlobal, a conservative think tank. &quot;I don&#39;t see a problem because nobody has demonstrated the acquisition will result in any privacy harm to consumers,&quot; he said. &quot;All the allegations are very hypothetical. Privacy advocates assert that Google&#39;s and DoubleClick&#39;s activities injure consumers, but they don&#39;t provide any evidence.&quot;If the FTC had blocked the deal, it would be &quot;penalizing success, and that would send a bad signal to the marketplace,&quot; Lenard added. &quot;That would also be bad for consumers.&quot;
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Despite a key win in court yesterday against auto insurance giant GEICO, Google&#39;s trademark-related legal battles are not yet over.
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A federal judge in Virginia has ruled that a trademark infringement suit filed by the Government Employees Insurance Co. (GEICO) against Internet search giants Google and Overture Services can proceed.