• San Francisco Chronicle, Friday, June 8, 2007 11 AM

As the Federal Trade Commission continues to solicit public comments on the Google-DoubleClick union, criticism and skepticism are piling up. Recently the advertising associations the ANA and four As questioned the fairness of the search giant's $3.1 billion acquisition, saying it would give Google an uncomfortably significant share of revenue generated by both search and display advertising. Later, a coalition of privacy advocacy groups called on the FTC to prohibit Google from compiling more detailed user information from its DoubleClick acquisition.

In an amended complaint, the companies said Google should not be able to collect personal information without the expressed consent of its users. The group also asked that Google give users the right to review and delete any collected data they wish, and that Google dump that data after a period of time. This would be a big ouch for Google, considering that the search giant has clear designs on enhancing personalization as part of its advertising products.

Shortly after the complaint, the FTC asked Google to produce a large volume of documents for an investigation of the company's privacy practices. Privacy groups are worried about "the unprecedented repository of consumer data that could be ripe for misuse," not just by Google but also its partners and government agencies soliciting personal information through subpoenas. It's that last factor, perhaps, that is most worrisome for consumers. Nobody likes knowing their private correspondence and Web history can always be wrested from them by the government.

Read the whole story at San Francisco Chronicle »