Consumer watchdog Public Citizen has called on U.S. regulators to conduct a review of Google's recent purchase of Skybox Imaging, according to Reuters.
The watchdog is concerned that Skybox's satellite technology could aid manipulation of commodity markets.
On June 20, in a letter to federal energy and trading regulators, Public Citizen announced that access to Skybox's satellite images of oil, gas and power infrastructure is already assisting "deep-pocket" firms like banks and hedge funds "gain a financial trading intelligence advantage" in commodities.
Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's Energy Program, wrote a letter addressed to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission and the Federal Trade Commission saying that commodity traders already subscribe to Skybox data, which includes satellite imagery of oil shipments, storage sites, and pipeline activities.
Firms like Genscape also provide proprietary data to traders trying to get an edge in a competitive marketplace, according to Reuters.
"Federal regulators and Congress must take swift action to keep consumers from further harm at the hand of market participants seeking to exploit non-public information to the disadvantage of other traders," said Slocum.
Google and Skybox have both not commented yet about the news.
Usually trading firms purchase physical assets like cargoes of oil or gas as part of their trading activities, but satellite images and high-resolution camera that can track the route of a single car or person could mean owning infrastructure may no longer be necessary to gain knowledge of commodity markets, according to Reuters.
"A non-public contract with Google can now provide the same competitive trading advantage," Slocum said.
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