• CNET News.com , Friday, November 9, 2007 11 AM

Google's $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick continues to hit roadblocks. This week, twelve Republican members of the House sent a letter to the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection demanding a public hearing on the proposed deal, because they worry that "The privacy implications of such a merger are enormous."

CNET's Declan McCullagh says that politics are definitely at play here. For one thing, these same Republicans have been enthusiastically "extolling the virtues of mergers" for years, particularly in the telecommunications sector, whose major players equally enthusiastically fill their campaign coffers.

"To say these Republicans like telecommunications mergers is an understatement akin to saying the U.S. occupation of Iraq may have encountered some setbacks over the past few years," McCullagh says. He follows that statement with an in-depth look into the anti-Google, pro-telecom history of each of the undersigned--particularly Joe Barton (Rep-Texas), who approved such mergers as Sprint-Nextel, AT&T-SBC, AT&T-Bell South, and Verizon-MCI. Meanwhile, it's no secret that these telco behemoths don't want to see Google become any more powerful.

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