Forum Moderators: goodroi
[news.yahoo.com...]
Google announced on Friday that it is buying online advertising firm DoubleClick for 3.1 billion dollars."We've come to an agreement to purchase DoubleClick," Schmidt said in a conference call from Argentina, where Google is opening a new office.
[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 10:50 pm (utc) on April 13, 2007]
[edit reason] added link/quote [/edit]
DoubleClick has had a strict policy as part of the terms of service that the information they collect is only available to the advertiser and the publisher. Remember when DoubleClick got into a bit of trouble years ago? If I were to see any hint that my DoubleClick data were being used by Google then there certainly would be some action on part against Google.
Of course I'm sure there will be a new TOS shortly so all those who use DoubleClick will want to read it closely when it comes out. If it says my data is no longer just my data then I'll have to figure out what to do moving forward. Unfortunately there may not be much of a choice.
Google - Do no evil...please.
JAG
If things keep going like this we would just say "To G or not to G"...
And when you get mad you will say "ok, I'm switching to... what?"
Also mentioned - Geico's landing page is all about insurance and not geckos.
Turn off your cookies ;)
I'm not so much worried about myself.
I'm worried about the data on the campaigns I run through DoubleClick and data that the publishers and I share exclusively today :-/
JAG
That's what I call profit!
sorry for the ranting, but competition does not seem to exist in these days.
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.
It has been our vision to make Internet advertising better less intrusive, more effective, and more useful,
and, if they want to spend/make more money, why don't they start buying companies like symantec, and those who offer ways to block advertising?
[edited by: Powdork at 7:42 am (utc) on April 15, 2007]
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful
Google's mission is to scrape the worlds information, and offer it back to us universally with advertising.
Google can't go around buying up companies for more than they are worth in order to keep other companies (ie, Microsoft, Yahoo) from making inroads into marketshare.
This isn't a practice that Google has pioneered. It would be incredibly hypocritical for Yahoo or, especially, Microsoft to complain. Not saying that will stop them, they all know how the game is played.
Remember those couple of years when Microsoft bought up all those independent game developers to ensure that all new games would come out for Xbox? Ever notice a void of new game concepts since that happened? ::sigh::
Companies want scrutiny of Google-DoubleClick deal
Several companies, including Yahoo, AT&T and Microsoft, are encouraging regulators to take a close look at Google's planned purchase of online ad company DoubleClick.
Although the companies have yet to file any formal objections with regulators in the U.S. or Europe, they are beginning to publicly voice their concerns, according to a source close to one of the companies.
If the deal goes through, Google would account for 80 percent of the ads served up on the Internet, the source said.
Google announced its plans to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1 billion on Friday. Microsoft had also been in the running to acquire DoubleClick.
Google could not immediately be reached for comment Sunday.
Google is buying DoubleClick from San Francisco-based private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, which acquired DoubleClick two years ago for $1.1 billion, and JMI Equity and Management. The deal is subject to regulatory approval. David Drummond, senior vice president of corporate development at Google, said he was confident antitrust and other regulators would approve the agreement.
Companies want scrutiny of Google-DoubleClick deal
Google rivals urge antitrust scrutiny of deal [investing.reuters.co.uk]
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Internet and media rivals to Google Inc. (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile , Research), fearing an unprecedented consolidation of power in the online advertising market, are expected to urge regulators to closely scrutinize the Web search leader's $3.1 billion deal to buy DoubleClick Inc.Google on Friday beat out Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile , Research) and Yahoo Inc. (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile , Research) to buy Web ad supplier DoubleClick, securing a leadership position as the Internet's top advertising business.
Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, said the deal would allow Google to corner the online advertising market and provide them access to a huge amount of information on consumer behavior on the Internet....
Turn off your cookies
Yup. It is the real Big Brother. I'm scared to go to the bathroom.
I'm scared to go to the bathroom.
What, you go to the bathroom?!? ;)
Several companies, including Yahoo, AT&T and Microsoft, are encouraging regulators to take a close look at Google's planned purchase of online ad company DoubleClick.
Not so much Yahoo, but certainly AT&T and Microsoft should not be the ones providing input on what mergers would be anti-competitive.
cheap b_astard! Buy one, no need to get the adsense sponsored toilet!
;)
Google became successful by having better search than anyone else. But that was years ago. The competition has caught up. Now they have to buy traffic. YouTube was purchased for its traffic. Google's acquisition program is focused on traffic-building applications. DoubleClick is about traffic. Now it's all about pumping up the traffic and keeping the prices up on ads.
Google is in a bind. They have a P/E ratio of 47, which is very high for such a large company. (Microsoft, by comparison, is at 25. IBM has a P/E of 16. AT&T is at 21. GM's is negative. Yahoo is at 61, which is interesting. Historically, 10-15 is about average for a large, stable company.) They have to keep growing or the stock drops through the floor. This is the kind of situation that leads to excessive M&A activity.
The scary possibility for Google is that the prices of search-based ads might start dropping. Remember what happened to banner ads.
I would suggest that this is more about Video than we might think. Google clearly want to start selling TV space, which is no great news. Doubleclick have been developing their ability to serve video ads for a number of years now, whereas Google have only got onto streaming video more recently.
Doubleclick have much better serving capabilities, and a much greater network of sites to serve on, so perhaps Google might be looking at this as an inroad into getting a greater understanding of the returns available from display activity before they start to properly try and sell TV ads?
Soon - all TV will be digital. People will be watching it on their computers, or at least through their computers, and TV will begin to get serverd from large content providers. These large content provides probably already have relationships with Doubleclick, and now Google will have a direct inroad.
As for data - does this start to close the gap on total visibility on the relationship between peoples display ads / TV campaigns and their search activity?
Doubleclick have much better serving capabilities, and a much greater network of sites to serve on, so perhaps Google might be looking at this as an inroad into getting a greater understanding of the returns available from display activity before they start to properly try and sell TV ads?
That's all well and good, but does it justify a three billion dollar price tag for double-click?
I think we're all so mesmerised by Google's technical genius that we find all kinds of complicated excuses for a clearly stupid decision. We imagine they have some brilliant plan for world domination, or are going to revolutionise tomorrow's internet (all of which could be true). But we blind ourselves to the possibility that they are simply on a desperate, mad buying spree that will end in tears.
