The Politics & Policy Of The Google-DoubleClick Acquisition

Yesterday, Danny wrote a lengthy piece dispelling some of the myths and misinformation surrounding the pending Google acquisition of DoubleClick. Today CNET has two articles, one on the EU decision to apply more scrutiny to the proposed deal, as we expected, and another on privacy advocates’ concerns about the acquisition and the appropriate legal standards involved in the regulatory review process.

The first CNET piece explores and contrasts the review process in the US and EU and discusses some of the legal standards and anti-trust rules being brought to bear on the potential transaction.

The second article critically discusses how the Electronic Privacy Information Center is trying to argue against the acquisition on consumer privacy grounds. As the CNET article points out, consumer privacy is an important value and consideration in the evolution of online advertising, but it’s not an appropriate part of the legal standards in evaluating the deal on anti-trust grounds.

It’s unlikely that the US will block the acquisition; however it is possible that the EU will ultimately require some concessions from Google before it will allow the transaction to go forward.