BEUC expresses concern over DoubleClick acquisition by Google

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A joined letter regarding the proposed DoubleClick acquisition by Google was
sent to the Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes by BEUC (the coalition of
all consumers’ organisations in Europe) together with other consumer
protection organizations from Germany, Italy and Spain.

The letter says that “the proposed transaction may have a negative impact on
the selection of online content available to consumers and on privacy. (…)
According to the information available to us it seems that, through its
acquisition of DoubleClick, Google could monopolize the on-line advertising
business, thereby restricting competition and raising privacy concerns over
control of consumer data.”

Cornelia Kutterer, the senior legal advisor for BEUC, explains the possible
dangers of the new deal: “They have, so far, complementary databases with
private data. If they merge them, this could lead to unmatched databases of
profiles. If they can combine them, this could lead to a violation of user
privacy rights.”

Another expressed concern is that “it would be practically impossible for
users after the merger to avoid all web sites serving Google/DoubleClick
ads, consumers would have no real ability to choose services other than
those served by Google, or to simply opt-out of sharing personal data with
Google. To put it in simple words, a website will have to be part of the
Google network of content sites if they are to be viable and visible in the
commercial market.”

Similar questions were raised in a previous complaint by US privacy and
consumer NGOs sent to the US Federal Trade Commission that started an
investigation on the matter.

Google privacy practices top the Privacy Ranking of Internet Service
Companies, according with a recent report by Privacy International and its
search retention policy is also investigated by the European data protection
bodies.

Consumer organisations BEUC (EU level), vzbv (Germany), Altroconsumo (Italy)
and OCU (Spain): Letter to Commissioner Kroes on proposed acquisition of
DoubleClick by Google (27.06.2007)
http://epic.org/privacy/ftc/google/beuc_062707.pdf

International Herald Tribune: Europeans worry about Google’s takeover of
DoubleClick (5.07.2007)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/05/business/google.php

Consumer groups alarmed by Google online ad merger (9.07.2007)
http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/consumer-groups-alarmed-google-online-ad-merger/article-165346

EDRI-gram: Privacy bodies investigate Google’s data protection standards
(25.04.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.8/google-data-protection