Microsoft has urged antitrust officials to contemplate scuttling Google’s design to buy DoubleClick, an online advertising company. Microsoft has argued that Google’s proposed acquisition of Internet advertising company DoubleClick raises antitrust and privacy concerns that necessitates cautious examination by authorities. Microsoft contended that the $3.1 billion agreement, announced last Friday, would damage competition in the rapidly developing market for advertising on the Web.
Microsoft further lamented that the deal also raises questions about how much personal information would be collected by Google, which is already an assertive player in online advertising. Bradford L. Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, said during an interview that the purchase of DoubleClick by Google would ‘combine the two largest distributors of online advertising’ and consequently ’substantially reduce competition in the advertising market on the Web.’
On the other hand, Google has set aside Microsoft’s contention saying, ‘We’ve studied this closely, and their claims, as stated, are not true’. According to reports AT&T, AOL and Yahoo have held discussions about similar concerns. In fact, Microsoft was also in the fray for acquiring DoubleClick but lost to Google.
Bradford Smith has revealed that Google and DoubleClick together account for over 80 percent of the advertisements delivered to website publishers, so their combination in a single company has big ramifications.
While announcing the acquisition plan on Friday Google executives themselves had outlined the fact that it would combine the internet’s two biggest ad networks to justify the high price of the deal. The proposed acquisition was widely observed as a strategy for the company against Microsoft and Yahoo, both of which were also involved in the bidding to try to acquire DoubleClick.
