The Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Center for Digital Democracy, and the US Public Interest Research Group joined forces to file a complaint, lodge an injunction against the acquisition and to request an FTC investigation.
“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,” the complaint reads.
“Moreover, Google will operate with virtually no legal obligation to ensure the privacy, security and accuracy of the personal data that it collects.”
The groups say the proposed acquisition ill “create unique risks to privacy and will violate previously agreed standards for the conduct of online advertising.”
Further, the groups say that even as separate entities, neither Google nor DoubleClick have taken adequate steps to safeguard the personal information they already collect.
Google and DoubleClick announced last week the companies had reached agreement – subject to approval – for the US$3.1 billion (A$3.7 billion) acquisition.
The deal has already attracted criticism from competitors Microsoft and Yahoo! Microsoft released a statement soon after the deal was announced saying a single Google/DoubleClick entity would control too much of the online advertising market and called on regulators to investigate the deal.
But it is the public interest groups that may present the biggest barriers to the two online advertising giants.
EPIC has already tangled with DoubleClick, having complained to the FTC in 2000 about DoubleClick’s planned practice of merging names and personal details with anonymous web surfing activity – and selling the result to national database marketing company.
The three groups say Google has already expressed an intention to merge data from Google and DoubleClick databases to profile and target internet users. They say this will have a direct impact on 233 million internet users in North America, 314 million users in Europe and more than 1.1 billion users worldwide.
The complaint says Google has a history of non-compliance with Federal privacy guidelines, and has been reluctant to tell users precisely what it does with their private information – in particular its tracking of web visits in connection with their IP address.
Google currently stores uts users’ search activity in connection with their IP address indefinitely, something the company does not disclose on its Privacy Policy Highlights (and something 89 per cent of its users are completely unaware of, according to a 2006 survey).
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