FTC Investigating Google-DoubleClick Deal

An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times is covering FTC interest in Google's purchase of the DoubleClick service. The investigation is in response to privacy group concerns over the amount of information Google will have available to it via its ad service and DoubleClick. Between a few days and a week from now the FTC should either declare the all clear, or elevate the process to a 'second request' stage. That would indicate more serious issues the federal body has an interest in. Google stated it was confident the purchase would hold up under scrutiny. 'In the complaint, the groups noted that Google collects the search histories of its users, while DoubleClick tracks what Web sites people visit. The merger, according to their complaint, would give one company access to more information about the Internet activities of consumers than any other company in the world.'"

Comments

If your worried

[CastrTroy]

If you're worried about how much data Google and doubleclick are collecting, then just block them from you firewall. If you never connect to their servers, they can't collect any information. If enough people start to do this kind of thing, they will have to start to find a new way of doing business.

Re:If your worried

[rtb61]

If you want to control google run this http://www.customizegoogle.com/ on top of firefox in preference to the google toolbar.

Re:If your worried

[badasscat]

But how do you really stop Google from storing all this data.

With a law.

How do you control what data they are allowed to store.

With a law.

Is yahoo somehow exempt from this because they receive less traffic?

No, Yahoo is exempt because they do not collect the same type of information. Laws only affect those who undertake the actions defined within the law.

The problem here is that how do you define too much, and what's the difference between google collecting a whole bunch of data, and your government census department collecting a whole bunch of data, and making it a crime if you don't respond to the census.

The difference is the law. Provisions for the census are in the US Constitution. It was the law of the land long before you were ever born and most likely long before your family even arrived here.

I mean, I know the /. crowd leans towards the libertarian side of things, but some people act as if they've never even heard of the rule of law around here. I guess given our current administration, that's probably not too surprising - but the fact remains that there's no inalienable right that says Google should be allowed to collect all this data on its users, which means there's no reason not to make it illegal if that's what's determined to be in the public interest.

Who makes these determinations? The people we elect specifically for that purpose. This is why we have a congress. You can call them incompetent, you're free to dislike your representatives, but it's not like it's some big mystery who gets tasked with drafting laws in our governmental system. That is your congressperson's job. If you don't like the job they're doing, then vote for somebody else next time - but this is what they're there to do, and as long as they're there, you should use them.

I think there is also a tendency for some people to turn fairly simple questions of law into larger philosophical debates. I don't really understand the reason for that. If people don't like the fact that Google is going to be collecting all this data, then we should pressure our congress to draft a law that stops them or anyone else from doing it. It's really that simple. There's no point worrying about whether it would apply to one company or another or why it doesn't apply to government or whatever. Laws are designed to address practical and specific societal issues; they're not designed to address abstract philosophical ethical questions.

Re:If your worried

[Guppy06]

"Provisions for the census are in the US Constitution. It was the law of the land long before you were ever born and most likely long before your family even arrived here."

The Census is required to ask you the following:

1. How many people are in your household? Don't count untaxed Indians
2. Of those, how many are men at least 21 years of age?
3. Of those, how many are enfranchised?

Anything else isn't "the law of the land."

My response to the doubleclick deal

[Lengyel]

My response to the doubleclick deal has to add the following entries to my /etc/hosts file. It's most gratifying to see blank spaces formerly occupied by distracting advertisements. Initially I defined ad.doubleclick.net to be the localhost address in /etc/hosts, and then found the other addresses below at http://radio.weblogs.com/0103807/categories/rant/2 002/04/23.html.

127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 m.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 img.x10.com
127.0.0.1 ads.x10.com
127.0.0.1 www.x10.com
127.0.0.1 x10.com
127.0.0.1 ads.addynamix.com
127.0.0.1 leadgreed.com
127.0.0.1 www.leadgreed.com
127.0.0.1 c1.zedo.com
127.0.0.1 ad.trafficmp.com
127.0.0.1 media.adcentriconline.com