Dear Competition,

Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:

- All case files on Case COMP/M.4731 – Google/ DoubleClick that so far have not been made public. This is meant to include internal Commission notes, minutes of meetings with representatives and submissions of the parties.

Yours faithfully,

Alexander Fanta
Follow the Money
Rue Auguste Orts 2
1000 Brussels
Belgium

Dear Competition,

Please pass this on to the person who reviews confirmatory applications.

I am filing the following confirmatory application with regards to my access to documents request 'Case Google/ DoubleClick'.

Access to the documents in question was denied citing the exceptions for commercial interests and the protection of the purpose of investigations. The reply states that 'the documents you request access to contain commercial and market-sensitive information regarding the activities of the involved undertakings whose
public disclosure would undermine the latters' commercial interests'.

I contend that any information in the files is now at least 15 years old, which in a dynamic realm such as digital advertising makes it unlikely to still be of a particularly commercially sensitive today. Therefore I ask to re-examine the files submitted by the parties to see whether the blanket exemption really still applies.

Also, in the Agrofert case referenced in the reply, the court noted in regard to internal documents prepared in the context of merger control proceedings, that in order to be able to refuse access to such an internal document, the institution concerned is obliged to carry out a concrete, individual examination of the document at issue and to provide specific reasons for which it considers that its disclosure would concretely and actually undermine the interest protected by the second subparagraph of Article 4(3) or by the second indent of Article 4(2) of Regulation No 1049/2001. I contend that this has not been done in this case, and ask to re-examine the internal documents in question to see whether they can be released.

Further, I would like to argue for an overriding public interest in disclosure. Scholars such as Dina Srinivasan ("Why Google dominates advertising markets") have pointed out that Google's acquisition of DoubleClick was a key moment in the development in the development of online advertising exchanges. Without full understanding of the decision made by the Commission back in 2008, any future assessment of the evolution of digital advertising markets over the past two decades will be necessarily impaired. It is therefore important to understand the Commission's thinking during that time, and to release documents which give a view towards said thinking.

Yours faithfully,

Alexander Fanta