From the Wall Street Journal (and others) comes news of expanded FTC investigations related to the recent consolidation of online advertising agencies. It’s funny… Microsoft and Yahoo were part of a group that pushed the government to step in and investigate Google for it’s proposed DoubleClick acquisition. And now, they too are under investigation:

The FTC is conducting antitrust reviews of Microsoft Corp.’s $6 billion bid for aQuantive Inc. and Yahoo Inc.’s $680 million deal for the 80% of closely held ad-exchange operator Right Media Inc. it didn’t already own, lawyers close to these deals said. The FTC already is investigating Google Inc.’s $3.1 billion bid for DoubleClick Inc. Source: The Wall Street Journal

As the article points out, many in the industry have been pushing the government to take a closer look at these acquisitions because of their potential to consolidate a huge portion of the online advertising industry into a handful of big players. And as I said before, any time this much money, business, and data is exchanged within a single industry, the government is almost certain to take a more active role.

So far, Google is the only one of these companies under an official investigation. Microsoft and Yahoo! are only on the “first stage” of the government inquiry and there’s no guarantee that they’ll even move on to the next one.

Nonetheless, it should be interesting to see how this all plays out. And it teaches a valuable lesson: be careful what you wish for.