EU group says Google-DoubleClick deal will harm privacy
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European consumer groups warned the European Commission Thursday that&#160;Google&#39;s plan to take over the online advertising company DoubleClick, currently&#160;under investigation, would&#160;erode consumers&#39; privacy&#160;and would push up prices for online goods and services.In a letter to competition commissioner Neelie Kroes, BEUC, the pan-European Union consumer group, together with three national associations, urged the Commission to use its powers to block the deal in its current form.&quot;Consumers&#39; privacy could be at risk; it is crucial that the Commission integrates privacy concerns into the&#160;Google/DoubleClick merger&#160;review process,&quot; said Monique Goyens, BEUC&#39;s director general in a statement.In addition to privacy concerns, the letter also argued that combined strength of the two Internet firms would harm consumers &quot;with respect to the price, degree of innovation, quality, and selection of online products and services that would likely be available to consumers following the merger.&quot;Neither Google nor the Commission were available to comment.Meanwhile, also on Thursday, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission&#160;cleared Google&#39;s acquisition of DoubleClick&#160;on a 4-1 vote after an eight-month investigation. The FTC concluded that acquisition &quot;is unlikely to substantially lessen competition&quot; and downplayed concerns brought by some privacy groups, saying those concerns are &quot;not unique to Google and DoubleClick,&quot; and &quot;extend to the entire online advertising marketplace.&quot;The Commission&#39;s competition department has until April 2 to decide to permit the deal, approve it on the condition it is changed or prohibit it outright.Competition reviews normally focus on the economic impact of mergers and takeovers, rather than their potential impact on privacy.Consumer groups wrote to Kroes in June, shortly after the planned deal was announced, warning about its impact on privacy. Thursday&#39;s follow-up letter focused on the economic effects of the deal on consumers, as well as reiterating the groups&#39; concerns about privacy.Acknowledging that privacy falls beyond the scope of merger reviews, they nevertheless tried to persuade the Commission to bear it in mind.&quot;Privacy issues raised in our 27 June letter are detrimental to consumers&#39; welfare and ought to be taken into account in the merger review process,&quot; the consumer groups said.Economic harm to consumers would result from the deal because it would strengthen what the groups describe as the super-dominant position of Google in the online advertising industry.&quot;The online advertising market will be placed in jeopardy if the Google/DoubleClick merger is allowed to proceed, because the combined company will dominate both major &#39;pipelines&#39; for online advertising - both the pipeline for search ads and the pipeline for non-search ads,&quot; they wrote to Kroes.&quot;If allowed to proceed, the transaction will enable the world&#39;s largest network for the sale of non-search online advertising (Google) to capture and use to its own benefit the dominant provider of stand-alone ad-serving tools (DoubleClick) used by web publishers to connect other networks to the non-search inventory which they need to survive and which is not already committed to Google,&quot; the letter said.By eliminating competition between the two companies for both stand-alone ad serving tools and integrated ad networks, the deal will ultimately &quot;reinforce Google&#39;s super-dominant position in the market for search ads,&quot; they said.In addition to the possibility of higher prices for consumers, the deal could undermine the common business model for online publishing, which relies on advertising revenue. This could force content providers to switch to a model based around revenue from subscriptions, forcing consumers to pay for what they get free now.&quot;Higher online advertising prices may result in part of the advertising budgets shifting to other media, resulting in less revenue than initially forecasted for web publishers. Such publishers might then be forced to charge users to access content in circumstances where they do not do so today,&quot; the consumer groups warned.&#160;
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Google Inc.'s privacy practices are the worst among the Internet's top destinations, according to a watchdog group seeking to intensify the recent focus on how the online search leader handles personal information about its users.
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Google Inc. is confident that its $3.1 billion bid for online ad tracker DoubleClick will win over European and U.S. regulators, a company executive said Friday Â even as advertisers expressed concerns the deal will shrink competition.
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Privacy to be central to lawmaker hearings in Europe on Google's proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick.
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InfoWorld - Google&#39;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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Google said Monday that it has asked European Union regulators to approve its pending 3.1-billion-dollar purchase of Internet ad targeting colossus DoubleClick.
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Web search leader Google Inc.'s   commitment to consumer privacy came under fire from  Privacy International, a British activist group that has  previously singled out Google for criticism.
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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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By KELLY OLSEN  SEOUL, South Korea - Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said Wednesday that U.S. regulatory approval of his company's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick will not be hindered by concerns over privacy.
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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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Privacy groups are raising new concerns about an apparent conflict of interest in the FTC's investigation of Google's acquisition of DoubleClick.
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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.
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Microsoft and other groups told federal lawmakers at a congressional hearing that a Google-DoubleClick merger would hurt the Internet.
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At a hearing Monday, a top European regulator said that Internet Protocol addresses should be treated as personal information, something Google and other sites have resisted.
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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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The wait continues The European Commission has decided to drag out its investigation of Google's proposed DoubleClick purchase.â¦