Web ad delivery network DoubleClick Inc has completed its purchase of Abacus Direct after shareholders voted to approve the $1.82bn merger. DoubleClick will issue 10.5 million shares of its stock to Abacus’ shareholders. The DoubleClick shares closed at $173 on November 23 1999. Expect renewed outcries from privacy advocacy groups like Junkbusters and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). These groups wrote to the CEOs of DoubleClick and Abacus in June 1999, asking them to abandon the merger. They argued that uniting the two companies: makes economic sense only if your intention is to link the 88+ million households and individuals identified in the Abacus Alliance database with the 30+ million cookies in the DoubleClick DART database. This would represent a surveillance mechanism of unprecedented breadth and depth, posing unacceptable privacy dangers to the public.
