Outcry Over Google's Purchase of Doubleclick

TheCybernator writes to mention that several activist groups have cried out in protest of the Google buyout of Doubleclick reported in recent news. "'Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick will give one company access to more information about the Internet activities of consumers than any other company in the world,' said the complaint lodged with the Federal Trade Commission. 'Moreover, Google will operate with virtually no legal obligation to ensure the privacy, security, and accuracy of the personal data that it collects.' The complaint was filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center along with the Center for Digital Democracy and the US Public Interest Research Group, all of which are involved in online privacy issues."

Comments

I for one... A call to the Google Co.

[Bananatree3]

would welcome a Google takeover of Doubleclick if it ment a radical change to its underhanded spyware tactics. If Google can reform this company into something less invasive, I really would welcome that.

TrackMeNot

[drgonzo59]

In addition to adblock, try installing the TrackMeNot extension. It takes a different approach to this whole spying situation, it floods Google with bogus searches periodicly. If you just block Google from getting the info, they won't mind, but if you everyone will send bogus queries it will actually skew their results. Here are a couple of queries TMN sent while I typed this:

"exclusive fire roasting process"

"business relations win"

"crazy meds explains"

"moat encourages young" -- what ?

and so on. It is pretty fun just to watch what it will come up with. I send about 1 per 2 seconds, and then perhaps a 'real' query once per hour. Let Google try to figure out which is which, they are pretty smart so I'll leave it up to them as an exercise...