FTC Needs A Global Perspective On 'Googleopoly'

As Google (GOOG) prepares to shoot the rapids of regulatory approval for its proposed acquisition of DoubleClick, the analysts are taking sides, including the exhaustive white paper Googleopoly that is making its rounds on the net.

The Federal Trade Commission, which is the regulator in this case, needs to view this from a global perspective. Viewed in the context of the worldwide online advertising business, the entire matter takes on a different tint. As strong as the Google-DoubleClick team may look from New York or San Francisco, they look like weaklings elsewhere. In China, for example, Google is a second-place player even in its core market of search, and DoubleClick is a non-presence.

If the FTC were genuinely attuned to the needs of global business - and, indeed, America's competitive position in it - they would pass this merger with nary more than a murmur. In China, if anything, Google and DoubleClick need all the help they can get, and the situation varies only by degree in the most rapidly growing Internet markets in the world.