Google and that DoubleClick deal news

Nearly lost in the news about the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's approval on Thursday of Google's acquisition of DoubleClick was another action by the agency: the publication of a proposed set of privacy principles governing online behavioral advertising.

The release of the privacy principles is an important and welcome step, said Peter Swire, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, and a law professor at Ohio State University. Although some privacy groups blasted the FTC for approving Google's DoubleClick deal, the acquisition has helped place focus on the entire online advertising industry's privacy practices, Swire said.

"It's good that the FTC is shining a spotlight on this industry," Swire said Friday. "Online advertising is in its second boom. They're trying lots of new techniques; some of those techniques have privacy problems."

The FTC hosted a workshop on behavioral advertising and privacy in November. The agency's proposed privacy principles, a series of "self-regulatory" steps the FTC is recommending for online advertisers, come in part from that workshop.

Among the FTC's proposals:

>>>Gimme more! (pcworld)

No Double Take on DoubleClick

The merger between Google and DoubleClick cleared a major regulatory hurdle Thursday when the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted not to block the acquisition.

In a four to one vote, the commission ruled that the merger "is unlikely to substantially lessen competition" in the online advertising market.

Google announced in April that it would purchase online ad provider DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash. The FTC opened an antitrust review of the deal in May.

Critics of the merger are worried about the vast amount of data to which Google will have access should the DoubleClick deal be approved. The search engine stores information on user queries, IP addresses and cookie details for approximately 18 to 24 months. With the addition of DoubleClick, Google will potentially have access to information about the activity of users across hundreds of Web sites.

The FTC did not see this as problematic. "The customer and competitor information that DoubleClick collects currently belongs to publishers, not DoubleClick," according to the ruling. "Restrictions in DoubleClick's contracts with its customers, which those customers insisted on, protect that information from disclosure, and we understand that Google has committed to the sanctity of those contracts."

>>>Gimme More!