FTC Approves Google-DoubleClick Deal

Bogie Lowenstein is one of many readers letting us know that the FTC has approved Google's acquisition of DoubleClick in a 4-to-1 vote. The FTC essentially blew off the privacy concerns about the merger, saying it lacked the legal authority to block the deal on any grounds except antitrust. The EU's review of the deal is still going forward, with a decision due by April 2, 2008; the privacy sensibility there is more sharply focused.

Comments

Re:Friction?

[spyrochaete]

I don't think AdBlock, nor "The AdBlock Crew", are professionally affiliated with Mozilla. Besides, Google's main source of income is advertising and I don't think they've balked at this extension yet. Currently AdBlock blocks all Google ads very thoroughly.

Lacked legal authority...

[nebaz]

I'm not sure about the privacy implications, but I'm glad that a federal agency finally recognizes its own jurisdictional limits, unlike some other agency I can think of who is supposed to be regulating radio broadcast spectrum allocation, not content on said spectrum. Still though, I hope it's not an excuse to pander to big business, like some of what the EPA does when they say that the lack legal authority, even when judges rule that they do not lack such.