Federal Trade Commission clears Google's takeover of DoubleClick

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has cleared the takeover of ad serving network DoubleClick by Google.

The FTC's investigation has been focused on whether the merging of the two advertising distribution networks would result in a monopoly in the market, but the FTC's view was that there was still sufficient competition in the market for this not to be the case.

Not all critics of the deal are happy with the decision.  Many are concerned about the possible merging of two powerful data gathering systems.

DoubleClick adserving and tracking systems do not currently gather any personal data, and simply aggregate responses to measure reach and response to individual ads and campaigns.  However the advent of personalised search by Google (and other search engines) has resulted in much personal information and search and browsing habits being stored.

Opponents to the merger on privacy grounds are concerned that the joining of personal data and non-personal aggregated data is a dangerous step, and want to see in detail what steps are being taken by Google and DoubleClick to ensure that the two data systems are kept separate.

Many in the advertising industry might welcome such a merging of data as the benefit to advertisers would be better targeting of advertising based on the preferences of individuals. Given recent high profile cases of data leakage, others, including us, are a little more sceptical.  We will continue to block and scan our machines to remove ad tracking cookies, and never use personalised search!  

To see the FTC release, click here .