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Google steps up lobbying over DoubleClick deal

As it awaits the green light from federal antitrust regulators, Google disclosed this week in a government filing that it is putting new lobbying muscle, including a former high-ranking Justice Department antitrust lawyer, behind its proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of online ad-tech company DoubleClick.

According to documents dated Thursday, the company has brought on four attorneys from the Washington D.C. branch of the law firm Brownstein Hyatt & Farber, including Makan Delrahim, who was appointed deputy assistant attorney general of the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust division in July 2003 and shifted to private practice about … Read more

Privacy concerns over Google-DoubleClick deal

Maybe I've spent too much time in information security, but Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick scares me from a privacy perspective.

I'm not alone here. Microsoft and AT&T are already lobbying the Federal Trade Commission to scrutinize this deal (albeit their concerns go beyond privacy alone). So has the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

For those of you who haven't thought about the privacy implications of this deal, let me offer a brief explanation. Google tracks user search behavior to match ads to prospective buyers. DoubleClick does the same kind of thing to serve … Read more

DoubleClick: We don't own consumer data

Following Google's announcement to buy DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, the search giant told the L.A. Times that it hopes to eventually merge the non-personally identifiable information from its own servers and those of the ad-serving giant DoubleClick. That way, Google would be able to better target ads to Web surfers, according to the search company.

Someone should tell Google it won't be able to do that.

DoubleClick issued a statement Friday saying that despite reports to the contrary, it does not own data collected by its DART ad serving technology, which is used by such major … Read more