The Federal Trade Commission today approved Google’s $3.1 acquisition of DoubleClick, clearing the way for substantial growth in the company’s online ad revenues.
Microsoft and consumer organizations had opposed the deal, arguing that it would create an advertising monopoly and violate users’ privacy.
The commission found that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to support either charge.
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The decision follows a dustup over FTC chair Deborah Platt Majoras’s refusal to recuse herself from the review. Groups opposing the merger had asked her to step aside because her husband is a partner at Jones Day, a law firm representing DoubleClick. Marjoras is a former partner of the firm.
Along with three other FTC commissioners, Majoras voted in favor of the purchase. The only no vote came from commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour.
“I am convinced that the combination of Google and DoubleClick has the potential to
profoundly alter the 21 century Internet-based economy - in ways we can imagine, and in ways we
cannot,” Harbour wrote in her dissenting opinion.
“I do not doubt that this merger has the potential to create some efficiencies, especially from
the perspective of advertisers and publishers,” she wrote. “But it has greater potential to harm competition, and it also threatens privacy. By closing its investigation without imposing any conditions or other safeguards, the Commission is asking consumers to bear too much of the risk of both types of harm.”
The deal still awaits review by European regulators. Europe’s top consumer lobby, BEUC, has spoken against the acquisition.
“Post merger, Google will have the ability and incentive to engage in significantly more intrusive user tracking and profiling than exists today,” the BEUC said in a letter sent this week to the European Commission.
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