European Union competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, dealt a heavy blow to the opponents of Google’s acquisition plan of online advertiser DoubleClick, when she said that the European Commission will investigate the transaction on privacy grounds. Earlier, Yahoo had complained to the European Commission that its competitor Google’s $3.1billion (£1.5bn) acquisition of online ad business Doubleclick will drive prices higher for advertisers and hit the income of web publishers. There are growing concerns that Google could become as dominant in online display advertising as it is in the £4.5bn European search market, where it reins more than 80 per cent of revenues.
The opponents of the deal contend that the takeover will not only ‘tip’ the online advertising market and make Google/DoubleClick a overriding supplier but also give it unwarranted access to and control over consumer-provided information (CPI). Other challengers, like Verizon, contend that any compression on content will decrease consumer demand for internet services.
EU’s involvement comes amid reports that US anti-trust experts anticipate the federal trade commission (FTC) to approve the merger without addressing the privacy issue. Google itself wanted to assure the Article 29 working group, EU data protection watchdogs, that its privacy practices have improved.
In the meanwhile, antitrust experts expect that Google’s takeover of the advertising firm will be accepted by US authorities despite vehement opposition from intense rivals Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc.
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