The Center for Digital Democracy and the Electronic Privacy Information Center have filed a Freedom of Information Act request for information from the FTC about DoubleClick and law firm Jones Day.
Hours after we reported Jones Day purged DoubleClick references from its website, the CDD and EPIC submitted a letter to Federal Trade Commission secretary Donald Clark requesting all of the information they have regarding Jones Day and its relationship with DoubleClick.
Two separate FTC spokespersons told CNet and MediaPost that Jones Day would represent DoubleClick before the European Commission regarding the ad network’s potential acquisition by Google. They had not heard of Jones Day representing DoubleClick before the FTC.
It appears the firm at one point had been advising DoubleClick on both the international and US aspects of antitrust law. A now-removed document from the Jones Day site indicated their relationship began on or before November 9th.
EPIC and CDD helpfully attached the Google cache of the relevant jonesday.com page presenting this summary. When we reviewed the current Jones Day site’s list of clients, and the five attorneys who had been listed as representing DoubleClick, all DoubleClick related references had been removed from the site.
Again, cached versions of each page showed the DoubleClick references in place. The FOIA request filed today asked the FTC to produce all records concerning Jones Day as related to the Google and DoubleClick deal, as well as “any other matter involving Jones Day and the investigation of consumer privacy complaints or the enforcement of consumer privacy law at the Commission.”
To make matters even more interesting, a DoubleClick spokesperson told murdok today, “Jones Day has been engaged primarily with respect to European and other non-U.S. jurisdictions.”
If that is the case, why would the prestigious Jones Day firm remove DoubleClick references from its list of clients and its attorneys’ bios?
This all started when CDD and EPIC asked FTC chair Deborah Platt Majoras to recuse herself after Jones Day’s involvement in DoubleClick’s affairs became known. Her husband, John Majoras, is a partner at Jones Day. Who knows where this may end?
