First Privacy Complaint Filed against GoogleClick Deal

A consumer privacy watchdog has officially requested that the Federal Trade Commission investigate Google’s planned acquisition of online ad firm DoubleClick and either impose protections on the collection and use of consumer data or block the sale.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center said in a complaint filed Friday that the deal would give Google more access to consumers’ online behavior than any other company in the world.

Google already aggregates data about the searches conducted on its industry-leading search engine and on its network of Web publisher partners. In addition to a platform that can deliver display ads to perhaps as much as 80% of Internet users, DoubleClick offers the ability to track those users and analyze their online behavior using data cookies.

“Google will operate with virtually no legal obligation to ensure the privacy, security and accuracy of the personal data that it collects,” the EPIC filing said. “At this time, there is simply no consumer privacy issue more pressing for the commission to consider than Google’s plan to combine the search histories and Web site visit records of Internet users.”

The Center for Digital Democracy and the private U.S. Public Interest Research Group joined in the EPIC complaint.

Google deputy general counsel Nicole Wong said in an e-mail statement quoted in press reports that “user, advertiser and publisher trust is paramount to the success of our business and to the success of the acquisition.”

“We can’t imagine taking any actions that would undermine these relationships or the trust people have in using our products and services.”

Wong also pointed out that the data collected by DoubleClick is owned by its ad clients, so DoubleClick holds only “limited rights” to its use.

The complaint is the first official request to a U.S. regulator to examine the $3.1 billion all-cash deal, which Google announced a week ago Friday. Microsoft last week urged an examination of the deal’s antitrust status.

The EPIC filing asks that Google and DoubleClick be made to promise that they will destroy all cookies that could be personally identifiable once a user terminates an Internet sessions. It also requests that users have access to personally identifiable data the companies hold on them. The complaint asks the FTC to order DoubleClick to remove cookies from any records it transfers to Google, unless the users they identify have had a chance to inspect, delete and modify the data.