The Federal Trade Commission has opened a preliminary investigation into Google’s proposed $3.1 billion purchase of DoubleClick, according to The New York Times. The FTC will decide in the next few days whether to escalate its investigation with a “second request” for information.
Several privacy and consumer advocacy groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Digital Democracy and the United States Public Interest Research Group, filed a request for the FTC to investigate after the deal was announced in April.
Microsoft, which failed to win the bidding war for DoubleClick, and AT&T both filed requests for an antitrust review.
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