Senators Wary of Google-DoubleClick Deal

Two senior lawmakers urged the Federal Trade Commission to only approve Google’s(GOOG) takeover of Internet advertising company DoubleClick Inc. if the commission concludes that no adverse impact on competition in the Web advertising market would result.
In a letter, Sens. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras that the outcome of the agency's review of the proposed merger would have far-reaching impact.
"The implications of this for the Internet advertising market _ and for the Internet as a whole _ are profound and potentially far reaching," said the letter.
Kohl is the chairman of the Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights subcommittee, and Hatch is the ranking minority member of the panel. The committee held a hearing on the deal in September in which Google's top lawyer and Microsoft Corp.'s(MSFT) general counsel testified about the merger.
Along with such other companies as AT&T Inc., Microsoft has publicly opposed the takeover, pushing the government to reject it. Microsoft wanted to buy DoubleClick but was beaten by Google, and has subsequently bought another online ad company, aQuantive.
Microsoft denies that it opposes the deal because it lost DoubleClick to a rival. A Microsoft spokesman said the company is against the merger because it believes it would "substantially reduce competition in Internet advertising."
The proposed Google-DoubleClick merger is the subject of a number of antitrust reviews globally. In addition to the FTC investigation, the European Union recently announced it was launching a detailed review of the deal.
Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich said Monday that company executives "have already worked with the FTC to address each of the questions raised in this letter, and we remain confident that the FTC will conclude that this deal is good for consumers, advertisers and Web site publishers."