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October 08, 2007
Senators raised no objections to Googles proposed purchase of DoubleClick
By Curtis Friedl
News broke in May of Google acquisition of DoubleClick. Since then we have been waiting for the report from antitrust regulators. The US Senate can not block the deal; however they can express concerns that they may have regarding the merger to regulators. Once this deal closes as Google, and many insiders expect by the end of the year Google will sole control over the largest consumer data base ever assembled. While both Microsoft and Yahoo has raised concerns about this control of information. They both acquired advertising firms of their own this year, Yahoo with Right Media inc. for 680 million and Microsoft's aQuantive inc. for nearly double the price paid by Google.
The important question is not so much if the deal will close as insiders predict, but rather the changes that will be made to the privacy practices of all concerned. Consumer groups have been pressing the Federal Trade Commission about a number of weaknesses in Google's privacy policy. The Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy information center Marc Rotenberg spoke in front of the senate on 9/27/07, he strongly argued that prior to the merger that Google should establish privacy safeguards. His statements are similar to those that EPIC has made in some prior industry actions. If EPIC's policy changes are used by Google, these policies may act as a model that other search engines and online marketing companies would closely mimic. As epic is a watchdog for consumer rights, steps that please EPIC are likely to provide each of us with a much more secure feeling online, espeically true when surfing popular engines like Google who have quite a lot of insight into out lives via email/search/maps/etc.
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