A double-take for DoubleClick

I'm a pretty avid reader of all things news. Among the sites that I read on a regular basis are C|Net's news.com, CNN, Gizmodo, and Variety. There are many more that I check in on from time to time, but that's the cream of the crop for me. A blog post from Declan McCullagh caught my attention today.

From his prestigious post as a C|Net blogger he cried foul over this "Republican" (it was 12 out of 13 Republican committee members who signed it) drafted letter to their Subcommittee urging a more thorough review of the pending DoubleClick and Google merger. McCullagh poses the question of whether this is partisan retribution against Google because a lot of Google staffers are Democrats.

Whether this was a Democrat or Republican proposed idea, I say it's about time that the government got a little more involved in the investigation of these types of mega-mergers. I'm pretty sure that everyone has heard of Google, but not so many people know about DoubleClick or it's ad metric and tracking system. The entire idea of a search engine that records every search word ever entered and the unique tracking capability of a company like DoubleClick is frightening.

If the merger is approved and Google becomes one with DoubleClick, will you think twice about typing in your search at Google? You might know that Google records what you look for, and then they'll have the capability to combine that with other geographic and demographic information to more accurately identify you - or rather whoever uses your computer.

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to hear Google's CEO Eric Schmidt speak to NAB attendees. He really impressed me as a thoughtful, extremely smart, and very articulate business leader. He's well aware of the simple fact that if Google were to piss off too many people, another search engine is just a mouse-click away for everyone. The question could be posed: Does anyone really know what search engine that they could or should use if Google's "do no harm" philosophy were to suddenly become "maximize all profits" and they began to use your private information in ways unthinkable today?

In the spirit of our effort with Toast (you have joined us at DrinkMePictures.com, right?) which is reliant on people joining and telling others about what we're doing - I'd like to encourage everyone to use this opportunity to call your Representative and let them know how you feel about the Google and Doubleclick merger. Don't know how you feel about it? Well Google it... oh wait... can you trust their results to give you the unbiased results you expect when it comes to information about them?

It should be noted that this very blog is hosted by Blogger.com which is a Google.com owned company. Right now, I think they are a good company, but it is a little scary to think of what they could be in 10 years. Our "democratic" voice will be heard by how we support them as a public company.

The Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection is made up of the following Democratic members (as well as 13 other Republican members of Congress):

Bobby L. Rush, IL, Chairman
Jan Schakowsky, IL Vice Chair
G. K. Butterfield, NC
John Barrow, GA
Baron P Hill, IN
Edward J. Markey, MA
Rick Boucher, VA
Edolphus Towns, NY
Diana DeGette, CO
Charles A. Gonzalez, TX
Mike Ross, AR
Darlene Hooley, OR
Anthony D. Weiner, NY
Jim Matheson, UT
Charlie Melancon, LA
John D. Dingell, MI (Ex Officio)