Analyst Thinks U.S. FTC May Block Google Takeover of DoubleClick

July 18, 2007

Washington, D.C.-based analyst Scott Cleland often espouses views and makes predictions that the larger analyst community does not.

Thing is, he is often right. He predicted, for example, that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would reject the WorldCom-Sprint merger on anti-trust grounds. He was right.

Now, Cleland is predicting that the FTC may well block Google's acquisition of Internet advertising powerhouse DoubleClick.

The overarching reason? Too many intersections of market domination.

Cleland writes in part:

To equal Google-DoubleClick's level of market concentration in the intermediary online advertising market, one single financial services company would have to own:

The top 15 Wall Street banks/asset managers;
~60% of the hedge fund and private equity industries;
The New York and London Stock Exchanges;
The two leading providers of financial analytical tools: Bloomberg and Factset;
Two of the three national providers of credit profiles: Experian and Equifax; and
~60% of the Federal Reserve's and U.S. Census Bureau's raw market and consumer data.

If you want to read more, Cleland's 35-page white paper entitled "Googleopoly: the Google-DoubleClick Anti-Competitive Case," along with an executive summary of the white paper, are posted here.