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Doubleclick Exits The Ad-Tracking Business

Posted by timothy on from the these-things-travel-in-packs dept.

Masem writes: "Cnet is reporting that Doubleclick closed down its ad tracking program as of Dec 31 2001, and is shifting from a media company to research and development for online ventures. Doubleclick claims they had upwards of 100million unique tracking profiles at the height of their run, but with the dot-com bust and lower ad revenue rates, ad tracking ran into the red. Even after the worrisome aquition of Abacus Online (which was rumored to allow Doubleclick to connect online and offline consumer profiles), the company could not turn a buck on ad revenues. Time to remove that 'doubleclick.com 127.0.0.1' from /etc/hosts now?""

14 of 209 comments (clear)

  1. Sniffle... by spatrick_123 · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is a tragedy for fans of annoying internet advertising everywhere. Sleep well, sweet Doubleclick - we barely knew thee.

    Okay, I'm over it now - when's the fire sale auction?

    1. Re:Sniffle... by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Funny
      > Sleep well, sweet Doubleclick - we barely knew thee.
      > Okay, I'm over it now - when's the fire sale auction?

      Yeah. I wanna buy a server from Doubelick, just so I can open it up, remove one platter from one drive for a headstone, and bury the rest of the server six feet underground.

      Then I'll grab my trusty Dremel and engrave the following:

      "Posterity will ne'er survey,
      A nobler grave than this;
      Here lie the bones of a Doubleclick server,
      Stop, traveler, and piss."

      (With apologies to Lord Byron)

  2. AWWWW! by StefanJ · · Score: 3, Funny
    Gosh darn it, I so did love seeing lovingly crafted, hand-tailored advertising made just for me popping up on the pages I was viewing.

    How the heck am I supposed to learn about products and services that I should be interested in now?

    Stefan

  3. 100million tracking profiles... by Alsee · · Score: 5, Funny

    Doubleclick claims they had upwards of 100million unique tracking profiles at the height of their run

    And it's rumored to represent over 10million people!

    -

    --
    - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
  4. Largest Cookie Supplier by DeadBugs · · Score: 5, Funny

    I believe they supplied more cookies than Nabisco

    --
    http://www.kubuntu.org/
  5. What REALLY happened... by kryzx · · Score: 5, Funny

    What really happened is that doubleclick couldn't make money in private industry, so they targetted the people who were willing to pay good money for that information. They got a multi-billion dollar contract from NSA to continue and improve their profiling, provided they stop sharing the results with anyone else. So now all their activities are highly classified, and they have established a cover, or front business, to explain why they still exist. But you didn't hear it from me... oh crap, who is that banging on my door ---- and someone's remotely taken control of my computer ---- IT'S NOT TRUE, HONEST! I MADE IT UP! I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!!!!! AAAaaaaaaaaaa........

    --
    "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
  6. What kind of research? by RareHeintz · · Score: 3, Funny
    ...shifting from a media company to research and development for online ventures.

    Hey, maybe they'll discover a way to make money on web content.

    OK,
    - B

    --
    http://www.bradheintz.com/
    - updated
  7. D-Click's new job by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
    They're going into R&D??? Surely this is a joke. What company in their right minds would trust research from this bunch of sleaze merchants?

    I mean, this makes as much sense as Microsoft getting to hardware...

  8. finished their job. by fatgraham · · Score: 2, Funny

    so, theyve collected all the information after tracking us for years. dont need any more information, therefore, stopping tracking us.

    a company that has finished business on the internet after doing what they planned? somethings not quite right...

  9. Re:Make way!! by Corvidae · · Score: 2, Funny

    Except then Amazon has a fit because you might, theoretically, possibly order a product from clicking there. =P

    --
    -Corvidae
  10. Heh-heh by Picass0 · · Score: 4, Funny


    Doubleclick can punch my monkey!!!

  11. MOD: Parent is NOT FLAMEBAIT! by Bob_Robertson · · Score: 2, Funny

    Directing people to a usable resource is in no way flamebait. Bad moderator! No cookie!

    --
    The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
  12. Research and Development... by Patrick+Cable+II · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...and is shifting from a media company to research and development for online ventures.

    Perhaps they can research some of the brain damages and annoyances of the x10 popunder ads and give out a cookie that gets rid of them for more than 30 days.

    --
    Patrick Cable II

  13. Exits the Ad-Tracking Business... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Yeah, Double-Click tries to exit the ad-tracking business, but 4 more pop up instead.