In what is being described as an unusual move, members of the European Parliament are urging trade regulators to expand their review of Google’s proposed $3.1 billion purchase of DoubleClick.
In particular, some lawmakers are concerned that the European Commission has not focused enough on privacy, and have even scheduled a hearing in late January to highlight their concerns.
In comments to the Associated Press in Brussels, Sophie in ‘t Veld, a Dutch Liberal Member of the European Parliament, said that several interested parties would be invited to testify about the privacy implications of the deal. Among those on the guest list are Google, DoubleClick, various U.S. and EU officials, and consumer groups.
The Google-DoubleClick deal, in ‘t Veld told the Associated Press, underscores the need for the European Union and the U.S. to hold substantive discussions on how to protect personal privacy online.
“Ultimately we will have to arrive on common standards,” she said. “We’re not interfering. … The committee is not discussing the merits or details of the merger. That’s not our business; that’s the task of the Commission.”
Google Tacks to Trade Winds
The world’s largest search engine firm already has responded, at least in part, to European privacy concerns. Earlier this year, Google announced that it would make search data anonymous after 18 months. That step was taken in response to a separate EU investigation by the region’s privacy authorities.
Google’s proposed purchase of DoubleClick has intensified privacy concerns across the globe. In September, for instance, Thilo Weichert, the Data Protection Commissioner of the German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein, sent a letter to the European Commissioner for Competition, registering his region’s objection to the proposed merger.
In the U.S., the deal has been opposed by several groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy.
Earlier on Tuesday,…