News Analysis: Microsoft General Counsel on DoubleClick and Antitrust from John Battelle documents some of his conversation with Microsoft’s general counsel Brad Smith today.

In this conversation, John asks why Microsoft is encouraging the FTC to look into anti-trust issues with the Google & DoubleClick acquisition. Smith explained that the purchase of DoubleClick is a sign of Google wanting to control more of the market.

While Eric Schmidt of Google feels owning DoubleClick is a tiny percent of the overall advertising world, Microsoft feels otherwise. John highlights especially that the issue might hinge on whether the deal is measured against all advertising or only online advertising.

The article dives deeper into how and why a trust action might get assessed. It also touches on John reporting that Microsoft was willing to pay more than Google for DoubleClick but that the private equity firm with a majority of DoubleClick’s shares was unwilling to sell to the company.

Related Topics: Google: Acquisitions | Google: Critics | Google: Legal | Legal: General | Microsoft: Employees | Microsoft: General

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz