Will The FTC Block Google’s Acquisition Of DoubleClick?

Scott Cleland, an analyst at the Washington, D.C. based telecom research group Prescursor has published a 35 page paper “Googleopoly: the Google-DoubleClick Anti-Competitive Case”. The paper argues that the US Federal Trade Commission will block Google’s $3.5 billion acquisition of DoubleClick on the basis that it will allow “Google to dominate online advertising and dramatically increase the opportunity for market collusion and price manipulation in the market for consumer click data, ad-performance tools, ad-brokering and ad-exchanges.”

Those interested can read the full report here. The stand out portion of Cleland’s report is how he describes Google dominance of the online advertising market post acquisition:

To equal Google-DoubleClick’s level of market concentration in the intermediary online advertising market, one single financial services company would have to own:

* The top 15 Wall Street banks/asset managers;
* ~60% of the hedge fund and private equity industries;
* The New York and London Stock Exchanges;
* The two leading providers of financial analytical tools: Bloomberg and Factset;
* Two of the three national providers of credit profiles: Experian and Equifax; and
* ~60% of the Federal Reserve’s and U.S. Census Bureau’s raw market and consumer data. More>>