Fascinating what a simple Google search can bring to surface: a document that appears to have been developed by a Microsoft employee or consultant, discussing possible remedies to what seemed to have be en the most talked-about event in online advertising last year, the Google – DoubleClick acquisition.
The document, a .doc file, is available from the NY Times site. See below a screenshot of the search results featuring the document:
The document seems to have been written by a certain ‘gregsi’ and the company associated with it is… Microsoft, according to the .doc file properties.
These are the suggested remedies “that address harm to competition that will result should the merger be allowed to close”.
1. Divest DART for Publisher (DFP) businesses to an independent and viable purchaser
2. Open access for competing ad networks
3. Open Access to AdSense/AdWords for competing tool vendors
4. Elimination of restrictive API practices and “fair” access to AdWords
5. Prohibit exclusive dealings, the “tying” of AdSense and DFP/DFA, and the tying of any Google products as a condition to obtaining its dominant AdWords package for advertisers
6. Erect firewalls and other safeguards so that the Google commercial organization cannot see or use competitively sensitive flowing through DoubleClick’s ad-serving tools.
These are, as expected, in line with remedies required by other organizations (such as the EPIC letter to the FTC), only much clearer in explaining the facts.
We all know what came of the merger and, as you can see from a previous post of mine, Google is now stronger than ever in terms of access to quality placements.
Still, what’s this document doing on the NY Times server? Could I just point out the irony in it, as NY Times is a premium Google AdSense publisher?
