The acquisition of DoubleClick by Google was certain to be a lengthy process the moment that the Microsoft giant took Yahoo!'s hand and filed a complaint that if it went through, it would spell Monopolistic move with capita Ms. So far, the Commissions both in Australia and the U.S. have approved of it and all that's left for Google to conquer is the European bastion, the last.

Some interesting and pretty unexpected topics arose along the way, such as privacy, mostly out of the blue. That is, Google would have never mentioned them, as options regarding the safety of customers would be a work in progress forever on the Internet, because of the ever new methods and techniques of monetizing. Nevertheless, it happened and despite it not being the point in the discussions, it caused some serious drama in the United States.

Europe has the future of IP privacy on its hands. The two parts involved have different opinions, of course: Peter Schaar, the German data protection commissioner and chairman of the Europe-wide privacy group, says that if a person can be identified by an IP address, then the address is private. His competitor, John Steinbeck, spokesman for Google on policy matters, says that an IP address merely locates a computer and cannot identify the person sitting at the keyboard. Furthermore, treating the IP as personal information would have serious implications for the way search engines in general record and use the data retrieved.

PCWorld.com says that "From Google's perspective, whether an IP address is personal depends on the context. […] An ISP can link an IP address to a subscriber, but a Web site visited by the person using a specific IP address cannot link the address to a person," according to Steinbeck.
The future of Internet life in general is in the hands of a few Europeans at the moment. Nice feeling to have, if you're one of them, wouldn't you agree?