Microsoft, others protest Google's DoubleClick deal
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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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(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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SEATTLE _ Google, unsatisfied with changes Microsoft is making to Windows Vista's desktop search feature in response to an antitrust complaint, is pushing for further changes and more judicial oversight of Microsoft's practices.
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DoubleClick (Nasdaq: DCLK) is considered one of the dot-com survivors. The problem is that it has never moved beyond survival mode.
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Search giant argues Viacom's agreement to shift its ads from DoubleClick to Redmond's ad platform shows online ad competition concerns are unfounded. Microsoft, naturally, disagrees.
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You can be sure that Microsoft will use the antitrust arguments it made against Google's recent deal for Doubleclick again to claim that it simply had no choice but to shell out $44.6 billion for Yahoo.
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Allegations by Google that Microsoft's new operating system unfairly disadvantages competitors has revived antitrust accusations against Microsoft and opened a front in a bitter war between the two technology giants.
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Google raises antitrust concerns in first public comment about Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Yahoo.
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Pledges 'constructive' dialogue with Europe Google is reported to be facing a fresh regulatory investigation: this time in the US, and into its acquisition of ad serving firm DoubleClick.â¦
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Microsoft on Thursday urged a US Senate panel to oppose Google&#39;s purchase of online ad targeting colossus DoubleClick, arguing that the 3.1 billion dollar deal threatens competition and privacy.
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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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Two consumer groups Wednesday asked a federal official to recuse herself from an antitrust review of Google Inc.'s $3.1 billion purchase of Doubleclick.
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Opponents of the deal tell U.S. lawmakers that the proposed merger would create a giant that would control a huge portion of online advertising and hurt the Internet.
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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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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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WASHINGTON -- U.S. antitrust regulators approved Google Inc.'s $3.1 billion purchase of DoubleClick Inc. Thursday, removing a key obstacle to a formidable combination in the burgeoning online advertising sector.
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Europe's major consumer group BEUC said Wednesday that it feared Internet search engine Google Inc.'s takeover of online ad tracker DoubleClick Inc. would damage European Union privacy rights and limit consumers' choice of Web content.