I think Google must have a special dictionary that constantly redefines the word “evil” to suit their own ends. The words “privacy” and “competition” would seem to morph about quite a bit too.

In response to a letter the German data protection commissioner wrote to the European competition commissioner, coming out against the Google-Doubleclick deal, Google responded:

“We believe that this acquisition will increase competition and benefit both consumers and advertisers”.

Perhaps if they’d put the statement the other way around it would have been more believable. Of course it will benefit advertisers, since they’ll be in a much better position to target users as a result of the merge of company data. And it will benefit users on one level, in that those ads will be more relevant to them.

What about privacy though? Damien contends that the new kids on the block don’t care about privacy, and he’s probably right, but there’s plenty of us remaining that aren’t kids. And to be perfectly frank, many of us think those partiular kids are thick-as-shit reality TV vegetables, and their own worst enemies anyway.

To add insult to injury Google and DoubleClick add that “DoubleClick does not own, and has limitations on its use of, the data it processes for its publisher and advertiser clients”, which of course ignores the fact that DoubleClick does control the data. And the limitations.

But it’s the “increase competition” line that gets me. How exactly will a merger of two of the biggest advertising firms on the planet increase competition? Answer: it won’t. That would be a lie.

Little tip for you Google: Lying Is Bad. Some might call it “evil”.