The Data Protection Commissioner of the German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein Thilo Weichert has expressed grave reservations about Google's acquisition of the advertising marketing company DoubleClick. "At present we have to assume that in the event of a takeover of DoubleClick the databases of that company will be integrated into those of Google, with the result that fundamental provisions of the European Data Protection Directive will be violated," the head of the Independent State Center for Data Protection of the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein (ULD) in Kiel writes in a letter addressed to Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for Competition. The merger of the two Internet companies "would thus lead to a massive violation of data privacy rights" of consumers in the European Union. In its upcoming competition-law decision on the deal the EU Commission would need to take a gross violation of privacy of this kind into account, the data protection advocate adds.
Source - Heise
