14 DAY TRIAL // Since Google announced it has reached a deal to acquire the online advertising giant DoubleClick, the entire world started talking about the transaction, approving or rejecting the partnership. But because several top names such as Microsoft and AT&T complained that this merger might infringe the antitrust laws, the privacy regulators from all around the world were required to give their opinion. Following the recent talks between the Google representatives and the US Senate members, the data protection commissioner for Germany's Schleswig-Holstein said the deal between the two giants should be blocked by the regulators because it infringes the privacy rights.
Basically, the German official referred to the period in which the users' information is stored on the two companies' servers although it's well known the fact that Google struggled to reduce the time for anonymizing consumers' logs. Earlier this year, Google's privacy experts announced a modification in the privacy guidelines, reducing the period for hiding some users' details to 18 months and 24 months in certain countries. But Thilo Weichert doesn't agree with Google's intentions.
A potential deal between the two companies would "lead to a massive violation of data privacy rights," the German official said according to CNET News. "We believe that this acquisition will increase competition and benefit both consumers and advertisers, and that it will ultimately be approved by government regulators," a Google representative replied for the same source.
However, the Mountain View company seems to be prepared to do anything is possible to convince the privacy regulators that a potential agreement between the super giant and the advertising company DoubleClick would not harm the competition. Google is already the top player in the online advertising market so the help provided by other companies would support its leader position and make other companies' attempts to challenge Google useless. Or not? Well, let the experts decide...