[JURIST] The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) [official website] has begun an investigation into a proposed purchase of advertising management technology company DoubleClick Inc. by Google Inc. [corporate websites] for possible anti-trust violations, the New York Times reported Tuesday. Google announced [press release] its plans to purchase DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in April, and the FTC investigation was expected to follow after several Internet privacy groups filed a joint complaint [JURIST report; PDF text] with the FTC concerning the potential buy-out. According to Don Harrison, Google's senior corporate counsel, the acquisition "poses no risk to competition" and has been reviewed by "numerous independent analysts and academics."

Google [JURIST news archive] has been the focus of many investigations concerning its compliance with both US and foreign laws. Most recently, the European Commission began an investigation [JURIST report] into whether Google complies with EU privacy rules. In April, AFP and Google settled a landmark copyright infringement lawsuit [JURIST reports] over Google's practice of automatically pulling and displaying photos, headlines and leads of news stories from the websites of AFP subscribers. AP has more.