Google under scrutiny over DoubleClick purchase

Washington: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has opened a preliminary anti-trust investigation into Google’s planned $3.1 billion purchase of the online advertising company DoubleClick, an industry executive briefed on the agency’s plans said. The inquiry began at the end of last week, after it was decided that the FTC instead of the justice department would conduct the review, said the executive, who asked not to be identified because he had not been authorized to speak on the matter. An FTC spokesman said Monday that the agency did not comment on pending inquiries. The deal, involving powerful forces in their respective niches of the online advertising business, prompted privacy advocates and competitors to raise concerns after it was announced last month. Those concerns and the deal's size made a preliminary investigation all but certain, antitrust experts said. The FTC will soon decide whether to escalate its investigation into the Google deal, the experts said. Such a second request for information would suggest that the proposed acquisition raises more serious antitrust issues. Google said it was confident that the deal would withstand scrutiny. Privacy groups said it was significant that the FTC, the agency that monitors online privacy issues, would be conducting the review, rather than the Justice Department, which shares antitrust enforcement with the agency. “We think it’s very important that the FTC is taking a look at the Google-DoubleClick deal,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy rights group. Privacy issues are not typically the concern of antitrust officials. In reviewing a proposed merger, legal experts said, regulators weigh the likely impact on competition and struggle with tricky technical matters like defining the relevant market to measure. AGENCIES