Continuing with the theme of stuff seen on Ars Technica, I thought this one was highly ironic given the state of things only a few weeks back.

Google will not be the only Internet giant undergoing scrutiny for its recent advertising purchases. The Federal Trade Commission has decided to investigate Microsoft and Yahoo’s recent acquisitions as well. Microsoft, which recently purchased online marketing company aQuantive for $6 billion, and Yahoo, which dropped a cool $680 million for 80 percent of ad firm Right Media that it didn’t already control, will both be the subjects of an antitrust review by the FTC.

Google’s $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick is getting a full, formal investigation from the FTC after consumer advocates raised concerns over data privacy. Other groups, such as AT&T and the American Association of Advertising Agencies, have called on the FTC and Department of Justice to closely scrutinize the acquisitions over antitrust concerns. In the wake of the advertising acquisition frenzy, Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo now control a sizable chunk of the online ad market, a development that has raised concerns not at only other ad firms, but also at companies that rely on a robust ad market.

It was Microsoft and Yahoo! that pushed for the FTC to investigate Google’s purchase of DoubleClick for anti-trust violations in the first place. Yet they then turn around and start to do exactly the same things themselves? :-)

Now, its not exactly a secret that anyone can start up their own advertising platform and sell ads online. Even I run my own advertising type business, kinda. I have an ad server that allows me to sell advertising space on my own websites. Unfortunately for me, I don’t do that anywhere near as much as I could ;-) Mind you, that works out better in the end I guess. At the moment, the only ads I bother to run anymore are the Amazon ads. And thats really only because I like to see the suggestions they offer me. ;-)

However, the big deal is the privacy concerns people have regarding the Google purchase of DoubleClick. While I’m sure thats a genuine issue, Google has made their privacy policy very clear in very public ways.

What search engine didn’t give in to government pressure to release search details about their users? In fact, they went to court to stop the government and won their case. However, the 33 other big companies just handed over the information without a fight.

What search engine has never accidentally leaked their user search data on the web?

What other search engine company pays students to work on software projects of their choice during their summer break?

Google doesn’t even sell their user information to metric companies at all. How many ISPs can make that same claim?

Do I trust Google? Implicitly. I trust it far more than I trust MSN, Yahoo! or any of the other big companies on the Internet today. And my trust in Google results in me taking advantage of nearly every one of their consumer products. Hell, if I had the cash, I’d even buy a Google Mini ;-)

My genuine belief is that Google is far more trustworthy with my data than any other organisation has proven itself to be. My ISP is probably the only company that knows more about my habits than Google, but can I trust them? Do I really have a choice?