Google-DoubleClick Deal Raises Antitrust Concerns

By Greg McNevin

April 18, 2007: In what could be called a case of sour grapes, Microsoft is urging an antitrust review of Google’s purchase of DoubleClick saying the deal puts competition in jeopardy and raises privacy concerns.

Announced last Friday, the US$3.1 billion deal will combine the two largest online advertising distributors and essentially hamstrings Microsoft’s efforts to build an online advertising business.

Microsoft is of course no stranger to antitrust claims, it crying foul over privacy concerns is a little rich though considering it would have gladly fed all that lovely user data into its databases if it had secured the DoubleClick deal in the first place. It does make a valid point though.

Google already sorts and stores massive amounts of user data gleaned from searches, Gmail, advertising and more. Because DoubleClick uses cookies, it will now be able to track user movement throughout websites. This will let it know not only what people are searching for, but also what parts of a site they visit, what they click on and even what they do on sites that use DoubleClick advertising when they are just browsing.

Even with its recent declaration that it will routinely destroy user data after 12 to 18 months this is a little worrying.

Any antitrust review of the merger would take around one month, however, there is no sign that either the Federal Trade Commission or the Justice Department (the bodies that handle US antitrust claims) will be scrutinising at the deal.

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