Federal Trade Commission Opens Antitrust Investigation Over Google’s DoubleClick Deal

Google Deal Said to Bring U.S. Scrutiny from the New York Times reports the Federal Trade Commission will be reviewing the proposed Google and DoubleClick acquisition. The preliminary antitrust investigation is to be conducted by the FTC and not the Justice Department, which is what privacy advocates wanted.

The FTC will decide if they should escalate the investigation into what they call a “second request,” probably within a weeks time. Google told the New York Times that “it was confident that the deal would withstand scrutiny.” While Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, explained his delight that the FTC is reviewing the deal by saying, “We think it’s very important that the F.T.C. is taking a look at the Google-DoubleClick deal.”

This antitrust review was expected. Early after the deal was announced, Microsoft and AT&T raised antitrust worries over the deal. And an FTC complaint was issued around April 20th.