The controversies surrounding major Internet companies and their methods of advertising continue. Today CNET News printed the latest on the proposed Google/DoubleClick $3 billion merger and the criticism it’s getting from industry observers.

The merger has plenty of opponents — from consumer advocates who want to limit Google’s power to competitors such as Microsoft who fear the Internet giant’s seemingly unstoppable growth — and those opponents are doing all they can to stop the proposed partnership from happening.

The trouble is, there’s not a whole lot they can do.

The options for shutting down the proposed merger primarily involve the courtroom, the FTC, and trying to win the interest of well-placed Congressional members. From the CNET article:

The FTC is reviewing the proposed merger, which Microsoft and a band of pro-regulatory groups are hoping to derail it. The FTC could allow the deal to proceed, attempt to block it, or attempt to impose conditions. In Europe, antitrust bureaucrats said last month that they were conducting their own investigation and would make a decision by April 2, 2008.

Meanwhile, a top Republican in the House of Representatives is demanding that Google answer a barrage of questions about privacy, some of which are related to the proposed DoubleClick purchase. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), a critic of the proposed merger, last month complained in a letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt that the company had initially agreed to let his aides visit the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif., but then didn’t confirm a date.

Barton is the senior Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has Internet regulation as one of its responsibilities. Most of Barton’s 24 questions deal with what Google does with search queries, how long information is kept, what data will be merged with DoubleClick’s, and how the company performs its partial anonymization of search results.

To get more details from Steven Musil’s original story on CNET, click here.