San Francisco - A number of public interest groups have filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), over Google's proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of online advertising company DoubleClick.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) and U.S. Public Interest Research Groups (U.S. PIRG) are urging the FTC to assess "the ability of Google to record, analyze, track, and profile the activities of Internet users with data that is both personally identifiable and data that is not personally identifiable."

They further urge that the FTC require Google to "publicly present a plan to comply with well-established government and industry privacy standards," and resolve other issues, or else halt the acquisition.

"Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick will give one company access to more information about the Internet activities of consumers than any other company in the world," reads the groups' FTC complaint.

"Moreover, Google will operate with virtually no legal obligation to ensure the privacy, security and accuracy of the personal data that it collects."

Related Links:
http://www.epic.org/privacy/ftc/google/epic_complaint.pdf

http://tinyurl.com/yrjzpz (CNET)

http://www.doubleclick.com