Europeans to hold hearings on Google-DoubleClick and privacy
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Privacy to be central to lawmaker hearings in Europe on Google's proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of the online-ad company.
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Europe&#39;s top data protection officials are working to clarify a grey area of Internet law: the legal status of an IP address.The question of whether an IP address should be considered private data occupied much time at a hearing earlier this week at the European Parliament regarding Google&#39;s planned acquisition of DoubleClick. If a person can be identified by an IP address, then the address is private, said Peter Schaar, the German data protection commissioner and chairman of the Europe-wide privacy group, the Article 29 Committee.This has been the rule in most countries in the European Union for more than 10 years. However, it is hard to set a clear-cut rule because some ISPs&#160;give out fresh IP addresses to subscribers each time they go online, and people also buy time online at Internet cafes.The Article 29 Committee has been examining the question of IP addresses as part of its analysis of how search engines respect European data protection rules. It is expected to reach some conclusions by mid-June, according to an official working for the committee who asked not to be named.The committee cannot fine transgressors of E.U. data protection rules, nor can it propose legislation, but it can prompt the European Commission to do so.Internet search companies, including Google, argue that an IP address merely locates a computer rather than identifying who is sitting at that computer. Treating IP addresses as personal information would have implications for how search engines record and use people&#39;s data.If the committee persuaded lawmakers to toughen IP address protection in Europe &quot;that would definitely change things [for search engines],&quot; said John Steinback, a spokesman on policy matters for Google.From Google&#39;s perspective, whether an IP address is personal depends on the context, Steinback said. An ISP can link an IP address to a subscriber, but a Web site visited by the person using a specific IP address cannot link the address to a person, he explained.The European Parliament hearing was convened by the assembly&#39;s civil liberties committee to assess whether citizens&#39; privacy would be harmed by Google&#39;s planned acquisition of Internet advertising company DoubleClick. The deal, which has already been given the green light by U.S. regulators, is under investigation by European Commission competition officials. However, like its U.S. equivalents, the Commission won&#39;t consider the privacy question.Nevertheless, if data being collected for one purpose by one of the companies is then handed over to the other company for use in a different way, European data protection officials would be obliged to intervene, said the official close to the Article 29 Committee.&quot;Google will have to respect all the obligations of DoubleClick, including its data protection obligations,&quot; the official said. If the two databases are to be used for the same purposes, then they would be deemed compatible and could merge. &quot;But if there was an incompatibility between the two databases, then they couldn&#39;t be merged,&quot; he said.The European Parliament&#39;s civil liberties committee said it would be holding more seminars to examine the issues surrounding data protection in the months and years to come.
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The European Commission said Monday it would take until Nov. 13 to examine Google Inc.'s $3.1 billion bid for online ad tracker DoubleClick to review its proposals meant to eliminate antitrust concerns.
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The US Congress Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing next week to scrutinize Microsoft's multi-billion-dollar bid to acquire Yahoo in order to take on Internet goliath Google.
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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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InfoWorld - European consumer groups warned the European Commission Thursday thatÂ Google's plan to take over the online advertising company DoubleClick, currentlyÂ under investigation, wouldÂ erode consumers' privacyÂ and would push up prices for online goods and services.
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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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European Union regulators will review Google's plans to buy DoubleClick for $3.1 billion after national authorities declined to take the case.
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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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A European consumer group has complained that Google Inc.&#39;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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PARIS, Dec. 21 -- European regulators are investigating whether a proposed merger of the Internet search engine Google and the dominant online advertiser DoubleClick would violate competition regulations, even as U.S. authorities approved an American marriage between the two companies Thursday.
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BRUSSELS - European Union regulators will decide before November whether to clear Google Inc.'s $3.1 billion takeover bid for online ad tracker DoubleClick or study the issue further.
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European lawmakers plan to take the unusual step of pressing antitrust regulators next month to look at privacy concerns raised by Google Inc.'s intended takeover of online ad tracker DoubleClick.
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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 has been warned that it may be violating European Union privacy laws by storing search data from its users for up to two years.
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The wait continues The European Commission has decided to drag out its investigation of Google's proposed DoubleClick purchase.â¦
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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.