Congress sniffing Google-DoubleClick deal

The FTC inquiry was a just a start. In the coming weeks, Google will also face a pair of congressional investigations into its proposed $3.1bn merger with online ad company DoubleClick - one in the House and one in the Senate. Microsoft and Yahoo! will be pleased - up to a point. A Senate subcommittee plans to scrutinize …

[Dillon Pyron]

Privacy? What's that?

Let's see, you have a search company that keeps every search you make for at least a year. And you have an ad company that tracks every site you've been to for only God knows how long.

Wasn't there a certain computer maker's CEO who said something about there being no such thing as privacy. "Get over it". At least until the CEO of a certain database maker went through his trash.

My firewall blocks DoubleClick.

[Lexx Greatrex]

THANK YOU Microsoft

For being a watchdog on the lookout for anti-competitive behavior. Perhaps this scurrilous hypocrisy is a sign you yourself will stop the tyranny of monopolistic and anti-competitive behavior that has devastated competition and stifled creativity and growth in the IT industry for the last 20 years. Or perhaps you are sore that Google, with it's sturdy moral philosophy of "Do no Evil" is beating you in every single marketplace it chooses to compete with you in; forcing you to resort to tactics so underhanded they make even you usual insidious business practices look mildly ethical by comparison: Honestly, if you could understand the meaning of that word: Making MS drone gameboys search LIVE search to rig a 1% gain in ranking against Google? Locking down the Vista desktop to try and prevent the Google search engine from being selected by your users? Releasing propagandist tripe from disgruntled ex Google employees who were misguided enough to go work for you?

You are failing not because Google is richer than you or they have smarter people or better lawyers; but because people know you are a corrupt and amoral organization. To have a search engine that is sponsored by paid advertisers means your user base has to trust you to not rig the results to suit yourselves or your sponsors, as was the horrible mistake of AltaVista. People are far smarter than your smug high-minded analysis of us seems to indicate.

These tactics, despicably ingenious as they may be, are only ever going to make you more hated - if indeed that is still possible,

Take heed. Do no evil.

[Tom Peach]

RE: THANK YOU Microsoft

Er Lexx, Google isn't even close to being richer than Microsoft, and their "Do no Evil" is questionable of late. They (Google) have shareholders, and shareholders generally want the company to do good, evil, or whatever it take to "line my pockets"

[Anonymous Coward]

Do lots of Evil

Do No evil?

Bull****

They are being hit left right and centre with privacy concerns from the EU.

Maybe people should wake up a little and realize they are a company to screw every penny out of you. They are there to make money FACT. You can believe they are there to help you live a fuller and better life, which may be the case if you spend your life spotting aliens and getting excited over the next line of code.

The hits are getting less & less relevant as they try and get more and more adds in there.

Example?

Type in "Children for Sale" (the wife did this researching Child exploitation for her job) and look at one of the results:

Family For Sale

Sell your business on eBay

Feed your passion on eBay.co.uk!

www.ebay.co.uk/business

So tell me they do no evil !

[Will Leamon]

Dear Lexx

Google fan boys are just about to overtake mac fan boys for the most obnoxious specimen on the internet. Keep up the good work!

[Andraž Levstik]

@Leex

lol I agree with Will on this one :)

Google's "do no evil" rofl... I rarely can resist to laugh when someone mentions that.

I avoid using google if I have to I use it through privoxy+tor+no cookies etc...

There are other search engines that have a better privacy policy if not I find a new one.

Though personally I find search engines overrated anyway. What I'm looking for is a simple app I tell what I'm looking for and a site to start then it would go from there and find/download/store and index things all onto my own box.

I rarely need search results this instant... when I search I could do more with a tool I give a query and let it run for N days while it scours the web and finds the info than use a search engine...

[Lexx Greatrex]

Hehe I'm no Google fanboy

Nor am I a Microsoft hater. I did come on a bit strong there making me look like both of the above; but my intention was to highlight the hypocrisy of the situation, which i am definitely a hater of, rather than laud Google or hate MS.