Beuc, the European consumer rights group, has joined the growing criticism over Google’s proposed $3.1bn acquisition of Doubleclick in an official letter to Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner.
Jim Murray, director of Beuc, wrote to the European Commission last week, warning that the proposed deal – which would bring together the world’s largest search engine with online advertising group DoubleClick – “may have a negative impact on the selection of online content available to consumers and on privacy”.
The letter, seen by the Financial Times, is the first indication of European opposition to the transaction.
It has already been referred to the US Federal Trade Commission after rivals such as AT&T and Microsoft complained that the deal would give Google a dominant position in internet advertising.
Beuc represents 40 consumer rights groups from 14 countries within the European Union and is 45 per cent funded by the European Commission. The letter was also signed by three other national consumer groups – Germany’s vzbv, Altroconsumo of Italy and Spain’s OCU.
Beuc warned Ms Kroes that Google could monopolise the online advertising business, saying that “this market power could have a negative impact on the diversity of content available online”.
Google is the most visited internet destination in 13 of 16 European nations. Opponents have become worried that its ability to charge a fee to businesses or individuals each time a search engine facilitates “click-through” to their website will limit choice.
Consumers “would have no real ability to choose services other than those served by Google”, Beuc said.
Beuc joined other privacy advocates in criticising the deal as providing Google with too much data on the web habits of users.
“The unprecedented and unmatched databases of user profiles will constitute significant and possibly insurmountable barriers to entry but they appear to be in clear violation of users’ privacy rights,” it said.
Last month Google was forced to cut the time it retains users’ personal search data to 18 months from 18-24 months, in a concession to European Union data protection officials.
Google was unavailable for comment. It has defended its position in the past, saying that the DoubleClick acquisition poses “no risk to competition and should be approved”.
