Groups want limits on Google
Planned DoubleClick purchase raises concerns about invasion of privacy — A coalition of privacy groups have taken another swing at Google Inc.'s proposed acquisition of online advertising firm DoubleClick, calling on federal regulators to prohibit …
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second round, not the first: a coalition of privacy groups filed an FTC complaint against Google back in April 2007 over the same proposed DoubleClick purchase, and the new petition escalates from complaint to an explicit demand that federal regulators prohibit the deal outright. The groups' argument is that combining Google's search-behavior data with DoubleClick's web-surfing trackers creates a single company with unmatched visibility into individual users.
First-order effects
- Google's acquisition now faces a formal regulatory record built by advocacy groups, meaning the FTC must weigh privacy harm arguments alongside any competition analysis before clearing the deal.
- DoubleClick's standalone business sits in limbo while the review runs — customers and rivals in display advertising get a window of uncertainty about who will control one of the web's largest ad-serving platforms.
Second-order effects
- Competing bidders for DoubleClick gain an incentive to amplify the privacy case, turning the regulatory process into a proxy fight over who controls commercial-intent and browsing data at scale.
- Other large ad networks face the same scrutiny template: if regulators entertain data-combination objections for Google, every future acquisition that merges two large user-data sets invites a similar petition.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, US merger review expands from market concentration toward what companies may combine in behavioral data — making privacy advocates recurring parties in antitrust cases rather than outside voices.
The trend: Consumer-data combinations are becoming a test case for whether privacy concerns belong inside merger review, with the Google-DoubleClick deal the earliest large-scale battleground.