The FTC has decided to review the Google (GOOG) purchase of Doubleclick on the grounds that it might "give Google too large a grip over the booming market for online advertising," according to The Wall Street Journal. Microsoft (MSFT) and Time Warner (TWX) had expressed concerns about the acquisition when it was announced and some consumer advocate groups have objected to the deal. They don’t want one company to have all that information on so many people.
But, if Google, why not Microsoft. Its purchase of online ad serving firm aQuantive (AQNT) should raise fundamentally the same issues. Will the FTC ask the same questions of Microsoft? If so, why not?
And, then there is Yahoo! (YHOO). It is taking over Right Media, which runs an online exchange for intenet advertising.
All three of the large internet companies already possess vast pools of data about individual consumer web habits. Many have offered or sold services to these same consumers and businesses, collecting names, addresses, credit card numbers and other confidential information.
If the FTC is going to look at Google/DoubleClick, perhaps it should look at the entire online data collection system.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
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