Update: FTC investigating Google-DoubleClick deal
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InfoWorld - Google&#160;on Tuesday confirmed that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is investigating its&#160;proposed $3.1 billion purchase&#160;of online advertising seller DoubleClick.
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A set of policy position documents reportedly authored by Microsoft made the case that Google could use DoubleClick's advertising network to peer into competitors' traffic -- a position the FTC apparently rejected last week.
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Over five months after the two companies announced their intention to merge, search engine leader Google and display advertising leader DoubleClick petitioned the European Commission on Friday for clearance of their merger terms. This morning, according to the Associated Press, the EC responded by warning that a full investigation of their petition could consume as much as four months.
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Google's proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick is the target of a formal FTC investigation, focusing on privacy issues and on the possibility that the merger raises antitrust issues.
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Blog: The Federal Trade Commission plans to expand its probe beyond Google-DoubleClick to also look at Microsoft and Yahoo deals, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday
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(InfoWorld) - A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee has opened an investigation into Google'sÂ proposed $3.1 billion acquisitionÂ of online advertising seller DoubleClick. The House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection will look into the "far-reaching privacy and competition issues raised by the proposed acquisition," Representative Bobby Rush, the subcommittee chairman, said in a statement. Rush informed the U.S. Federal Trade Commission of the investigation in a letter sent Tuesday. In May, the FTC opened its own investigation into the proposed acquisition. The subcommittee will seek to host a hearing on the acquisition later this year, Rush said in the letter. Consumer groups haveÂ raised concernsÂ that the combined company would be a threat to privacy. In April, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Center for Digital Democracy and the U.S. Public Interest Research GroupÂ asked the FTC to blockÂ the merger unless it obtains guarantees from Google and DoubleClick that they will protect Internet users' privacy. The groups want Google to destroy all cookies and other persistent identifiers resulting from Internet searches that are or could be personally identifiable once a user terminates a session with Google. Other groups have raised concerns about the acquisition's effect on competition in the online advertising market. Rush, an Illinois Democrat, shares those concerns, he wrote to the FTC. "The subcommittee takes very seriously the protection of consumer privacy," he added. Google said in a statement issued Thursday that it was confident the FTC will conclude the acquisition "poses no risk to competition." The Senate Judiciary Committee is also planning hearings on the online advertising space, including recent acquisitions by MicrosoftÂ and Yahoo, according to a source familiar with the hearing plans. Â
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The Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday it approved Google's proposed $3.1 billion purchase of advertising rival DoubleClick.
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Online rights groups continue to press the FTC to require privacy protections as conditions of Google's acquisition of 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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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission voted 4-1 to approve the Google acquisition of online ad vendor DoubleClick.
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But not without dissent The FTC has voted to approve Google's of web advertising powerhouse DoubleClick, after an eight month investigation - but not without a dissenting voice.â¦
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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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Now that the pairing of online advertising industry giants DoubleClick and Google is receiving extra regulatory attention, both in the US and abroad, the question arises once again: Does a merger of two giants lead to the creation of a single behemoth that can carve out a lion's share of the Web audience for itself? One of DoubleClick's long-time competitors - Burst Media CEO Jarvis Coffin - believes it won't.
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U.S. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras is consulting with the agency&#39;s ethics officer to see if she should recuse herself from a review of&#160;Google&#39;s planned acquisition of online ad network DoubleClick.
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Google Inc. has hired a former Justice Department official to lobby the federal government on its proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick Inc., which is being reviewed by antitrust regulators.
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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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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¦