Google plan raises privacy issue

GOOGLE PLAN RAISES PRIVACY ISSUES
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Joseph Menn]
Google's purchase of DoubleClick would create the world's single largest repository of details about people's behavior online, an unnerving prospect for some privacy experts. The $3.1-billion acquisition would combine two companies with massive troves of information about most people who use the Internet. "This is something that is concerning," said Kurt Opsahl, an attorney with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. Google's associate general counsel, Nicole Wong, said Monday that Google did in fact hope to integrate the two companies' "non-personally identifiable data," and that mixing them would be of "great benefit" to both consumers and advertisers. Personally identifiable data include names, physical addresses and the like. An advertiser, Wong said, could use the information to make sure that a person wasn't bombarded with the same ad again and again, cutting down on the annoyance level for surfers.
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-privacy17apr17,1,6018...
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