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Microsoft is encouraging antitrust officials to intervene in a deal between Google and DoubleClick, claiming it would create something of an online advertising hegemony.
Microsoft, itself having been on the receiving end of many antitrust cases, claims that the $3.1 billion deal would stunt competition in the fast-growing web advertising market and raise questions about how much personal information would be collected by Google, according to the New York Times.
Bradford Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, said that the purchase of DoubleClick by Google would “combine the two largest distributors of online advertising and thus substantially reduce competition in the advertising market on the Web.”
He also said that Google and DoubleClick would be in a position to “observe and capture consumer information on an unprecedented scale.”
Google was summarily dismissive of these claims: “We’ve studied this closely, and their claims, as stated, are not true,” said Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google.
