• October 5, 2007

The German state of Schleswig-Holstein is the latest party to raise objections to the Google/DoubleClick merger. Thilo Weichert, Schleswig-Holstein's data protection commissioner, claimed that the $3.1 billion merger will threaten user privacy.

Weichert insisted in an open letter to European Union Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes that the merging of the two companies' databases would represent a real threat.

"At present we have to assume that, in the event of a takeover of DoubleClick, its databases will be integrated into Google's, with the result that fundamental provisions of the European Data Protection Directive will be violated," he said.