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Senators take more antitrust and privacy shots at Google

A letter from the top two ranking members of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, Democrat Herb Kohl and Republican Orrin Hatch, seeks to chill Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick on antitrust grounds:

Antitrust regulators need to be wary to guard against the creation of a powerful Internet conglomerate able to extend its market power in one market into adjacent markets, to the detriment of competition and consumers.

This might not have seemed like much of a threat, even a year or two ago, but as the online world increasingly merges with the offline world, the threat becomes more palpable.

My primary concern with the deal isn't about advertising market share, but rather about privacy, as the senators also call out:… Read more

Why are Republicans in Congress targeting Google? Two reasons

An odd thing happened in Washington this week. A dozen Republicans demanded a public hearing into Google's proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick because, they claim, "the privacy implications of such a merger are enormous."

This demand came in a letter from those politicians (PDF), including Rep. Dennis Hastert, to their Democratic counterparts, who now have the power to decide whether to haul Google in for questioning.

What's odd is that these are the same Republicans who have spent their political careers extolling the virtues of mergers when telecommunications giants are vying to acquire one … Read more

German official says 'nein' to Google-DoubleClick deal

The data protection commissioner of the German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein has come out against Google's proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick.

Such a merger would "lead to a massive violation of data privacy rights" for consumers in the European Union if the databases of the two companies were combined, says Thilo Weichert, data protection commissioner for Germany's northernmost state.

In a letter to the European Commissioner for Competition, Weichert writes that search engines in general already violate consumer rights to "informational self-determination" by retaining data for so long, among other things.

A … Read more

Killer Download: The quick way to free up hard drive space

Recently a friend of mine asked me about good programs to find duplicate files. She had important files on two different drives and knew she had a significant amount of duplication, but didn't want to lose newer files in either location. Moreover, she wanted to transfer all of her files to a new computer she had just bought.

I knew of one program that worked for me in the past, but did a little research to find several programs that quickly scan drives and let you compare files to know which ones you can delete. Not only do these applications offer a solution to my friend's problem above, you can also free up a significant amount of hard drive space by getting rid of duplicates.… Read more

Microsoft's anti-Google lobbyists, revealed

If it wasn't official before, we have it in writing now: Microsoft is directing at least a small fraction of its massive (by tech industry standards) lobbying shop toward Google's proposed purchase of DoubleClick.

According to a recent public disclosure filing with the U.S. Senate, Redmond has retained veteran lobbyists Thomas Boggs and Kathleen Ireland (no, not that Kathy Ireland), along with Antitrust Modernization Commission vice chairman and former Clinton White House attorney Jonathan Yarowsky. All of them work for the prominent law firm Patton Boggs.

Their charge, according to the paperwork? "Competitive issues surrounding Google-DoubleClick … Read more

Double Rainbow over Tempe

TEMPE, Ariz.--A double rainbow! I've been hearing about them for years, but the closest I ever came to one was eating some ice cream.

But this evening, while returning to my motel from dinner, there it was. OK, the second rainbow wasn't complete, but it was definitely there. So, I'm giving it credit. After all, have you ever heard of a "One-and-a-half rainbow?"

To be sure, maybe this is a common thing in Tempe, where I'm visiting on my Road Trip around the Southwest, but I hope not. If so, chalk it up … Read more

Another Google vs. Microsoft near-row in D.C.

WASHINGTON--It was supposed to be a tame gathering of economists evaluating the marketplace implications of Google's planned $3.1 billion purchase of ad tech firm DoubleClick, but a think tank event here on Wednesday briefly threatened to devolve into yet another Google vs. Microsoft row.

It began calmly enough, with a buffet lunch and presentations from Harvard University's Thomas Eisenmann, Stanford University's Robert Hall, the University of Pennsylvania's Lorin Hitt and David Evans of the private analyst firm LECG. Invited by the American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institution to speak, they each described--at times in dense … Read more

Privacy concerns over Google-DoubleClick deal

Maybe I've spent too much time in information security, but Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick scares me from a privacy perspective.

I'm not alone here. Microsoft and AT&T are already lobbying the Federal Trade Commission to scrutinize this deal (albeit their concerns go beyond privacy alone). So has the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

For those of you who haven't thought about the privacy implications of this deal, let me offer a brief explanation. Google tracks user search behavior to match ads to prospective buyers. DoubleClick does the same kind of thing to serve … Read more

DoubleClick: We don't own consumer data

Following Google's announcement to buy DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, the search giant told the L.A. Times that it hopes to eventually merge the non-personally identifiable information from its own servers and those of the ad-serving giant DoubleClick. That way, Google would be able to better target ads to Web surfers, according to the search company.

Someone should tell Google it won't be able to do that.

DoubleClick issued a statement Friday saying that despite reports to the contrary, it does not own data collected by its DART ad serving technology, which is used by such major … Read more

Jumping rope without the rope

If you're still afraid that the Wii might send you to the emergency room, perhaps the "JumpSnap" is right for you. At least there's no rope to strangle yourself with.

That's right, this is jump sans rope. The JumpSnap is basically a set of two electronic handles that are programmed to lead you through workouts, with sensors to gauge how well you're doing along the way. However, as SCI FI Tech points out, the coordination aspects of analog rope-jumping seem to get lost in the translation to the virtual version.

A kids-size alternative could … Read more