Hearing urged on plan to buy ad firm

A congressional hearing should be held to examine the privacy aspects of Google Inc.’s plan to buy advertising company DoubleClick, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said Tuesday.

“Google is an information colossus already, but add on DoubleClick’s marketing power and you produce a single commercial entity that can know more about you and me than nearly everybody but mom and the IRS,” Rep. Joe L. Barton of Texas said in a statement, referring to the Internal Revenue Service.

The $3.1-billion Google-DoubleClick deal has been under review by the Federal Trade Commission since May. Google, which stores data on the Internet-surfing habits of consumers, wants to buy DoubleClick to increase its clout in tailoring ads to consumer activities.

“It seems to me that policymakers should know more about Google’s intentions than we do, and a serious hearing to get at the facts looks like a very good idea,” Barton said.

A dozen Republican members of the committee sent a letter requesting a hearing to Rep. Bobby L. Rush, the Illinois Democrat who heads the subcommittee on consumer protection.

Rush declined to comment on the letter.

Although a Senate panel held a hearing in September on antitrust aspects of the Google-DoubleClick deal, the Republicans said a closer look at consumer privacy issues was needed.

The privacy implications of the merger “are enormous,” they said in their letter, noting that Google and DoubleClick together would have one of the largest search query databases and one of the biggest online user-behavior profile databases.

Republicans who signed the letter included former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, Cliff Stearns of Florida, Mary Bono of Palm Springs, Vito J. Fossella of New York, Charles W. “Chip” Pickering of Mississippi and Sue Myrick of North Carolina.