U.S. lawmakers are worried Google’s gobbling up too many companies.
At a hearing yesterday to consider the Internet behemoth’s planned $3.1 billion takeover of online advertising specialist DoubleClick, one senator fretted that the deal would give the company “a stranglehold” over Internet advertising.
Adding fuel to lawmakers’ concerns, Microsoft – a bitter foe which lost out on a bid for DoubleClick – said the acquisition would make Google “the overwhelmingly dominant pipeline for all forms of online advertising.”
David Drummond, chief legal officer at Google, defended the deal, explaining to lawmakers: “DoubleClick is to Google what FedEx or UPS is to Amazon.com.”
But Microsoft, represented by its in-house lawyer Brad Smith, countered by saying, “Google is already Amazon and is already FedEx. Now they’re proposing to buy the post office.”
Besides advertising, another concern, Smith said, is that Google could use DoubleClick – which tracks advertising across the Web – and its own vast storehouse of information about its users to invade the privacy of consumers.
In Google’s favor, however, senators didn’t come out at the hearing as opposing the deal.
Lawmakers don’t have a vote on whether the deal goes through, but they could put pressure on federal regulators to reject it.
Shares of Google dipped $0.66 yesterday to close at $567.50.