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Discussions about Google's plan to buy DoubleClick raised the question whether an IP address is legally private. Europe's top data protection officials are working to clarify a grey area of Internet law: the legal status of an Internet Protocol (IP) address. The question of whether an IP address should be considered private data occupied much time at a hearing last week at the European Parliament regarding Google's planned acquisition of DoubleClick. If a person can be identified by an IP address, then the address is private, said Peter Schaar, the German data protection commissioner and chairman of the Europe-wide privacy...

PALO ALTO, Calif.--There is something unusual, and perhaps a little worrisome, in the arguments a band of special-interest groups has invoked against Google's purchase of the DoubleClick advertising firm. The arguments can be found in a series of three letters (PDF) sent to the Federal Trade Commission starting in April. The letters ask, in part, that the FTC "use its authority to review mergers to halt Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick." It's true, of course, that the FTC shares responsibility for reviewing mergers with the Department of Justice. What's odd is the letters say that this particular merger should be...

A letter from the top two ranking members of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, Democrat Herb Kohl and Republican Orrin Hatch, seeks to chill Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick on antitrust grounds: Antitrust regulators need to be wary to guard against the creation of a powerful Internet conglomerate able to extend its market power in one market into adjacent markets, to the detriment of competition and consumers. This might not have seemed like much of a threat, even a year or two ago, but as the online world increasingly merges with the offline world, the...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The Federal Trade Commission has opened an antitrust investigation into Google Inc.'s proposed $3.1 billion purchase of ad-management technology company DoubleClick Inc. The review of the deal was widely expected after Mountain View-based Google announced plans last month to acquire DoubleClick, a company that helps its customers place and track online advertising. New York-based DoubleClick helps its customers place and track online advertising, including search ads, which Google -- more than its nearest search competitors Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. -- has turned into an extremely lucrative business. DoubleClick had been the target of a fierce...

The end of free Internet content will come when Web browsers start blocking online advertisements by default, a DoubleClick executive has warned. Bennie Smith, the online advertising network's privacy chief, told ZDNet Australia the popularity of tools like Adblock -- an extension to the Mozilla Firefox browser -- which makes blocking online ads simple was tied to "a negative vibe against advertising in general". However, only the online arena is able to easily produce and widely distribute such tools, he added. He said if a similar tool could be produced for newspapers, it would not be accepted by consumers. "You'd...