Google/Yahoo and the DoJ: Regulators – even Google! – Finally Wake Up to Growing Online Ad Industry Consolidation
But New Administration Must Tackle Online Ad Privacy and Industry Consolidation

We are pleased that Google finally understood that the proposed alliance with its leading competitor threatened competition. Much is at stake over the competitive landscape for online advertising. For too long, policymakers and regulators have failed to address the growing consolidation of control in the online advertising market. Today’s announcement in its own way underscores what we have been telling officials: that a very tiny handful of global digital giants—particularly Google—is increasingly dominating the most prevalent way online publishing is financially supported (“monetized”). The future diversity of online content—including news—is ultimately connected to the key question of whether one or two companies globally control the flow of most ad dollars tied to our use of broadband to PC’s, mobile devices, and perhaps even digital TV’s.

By agreeing to operate a significant part of its leading competitor’s search ad business, Google would ultimately further diminish Yahoo!’s ability to provide some choice in the marketplace. Frankly, Google’s attempt to largely deny that this—or any other deal it makes—raises public interest concerns illustrates how it must be closely watched by regulators to protect the interests of both consumers and competitors. Two years ago next month, my Center for Digital Democracy and the US Public Interest Research Group petitioned the FTC, urging it open up an antitrust inquiry into the growing concentration of online advertising. The commission failed to do so, ushering in a frenzy of deal making that has placed competition in the digital marketing sphere at risk. (For example, over the past two years then we have seen such mergers as Google/DoubleClick; Microsoft/aQuantive; Yahoo/Right Media/Blue Lithium/; and Time Warner/AOL/Tacoda.) CDD sent a letter last July to the DoJ explaining our concerns over the Google/Yahoo deal; it also sent a letter earlier this month to Sen. Herb Kohl expressing our opposition. More must be done—in Washington, Europe, and Asia—to investigate how digital media ad consolidation undermines the Internet’s democratic and commercial potential. Sadly missing from today’s announcement, however, is any mention of the many consumer privacy concerns raised by the proposed Google/Yahoo deal. Online media ad consolidation is ultimately about a very few companies controlling access to vast amounts of information about each of us. A new Administration and Congress should support serious consumer safeguards protecting our online privacy. They should also address the antitrust issues emerging in online media.