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Google In Bidding To Buy DoubleClick
A number of readers clued us to the latest development in the saga of te sale of DoubleClick: Google has thrown its hat into the ring against Microsoft and (reportedly) Yahoo and AOL. Most of the stories quote a Wall Street Journal piece that is only available to subscribers. Google's entry into the bidding may boost the price for the remaining pieces of DoubleClick (parts of the company having already been sold off) to $2 billion, twice what its current owners paid for the whole thing. Some reports speculate that this figure could give Microsoft pause.
Mr. "Don't be evil" in the running to buy one of the most Evil and Rude companies on the 'net.
Somehow I doubt it's to dismantle them and slowly kill the bastards responsible...
On page B4 of the WSJ today they say that if it goes north of $2 billion MSFT will drop out. They also mention that TimeWarner is interested as doubleclick has a healthy partnership with AOL that they want to protect. Yahoo is also mentioned as a suitor in the article. They all no-commented when asked, except for the statement that it was going to be sorted out in the next few days...
I think Google can benefit from buying DoubleClick. It seems a logical extension for them to get into the brokerage of the ads and take a larger share of online ad spending.
It has been rumored though that Google has been developing a system similar to DoubleClick that they are supposed to be launching this year. If that is the case, I don't see how the high price would be justified. I think Google needs to be a little more careful when making these billion dollar purchases.
Please mod me only (+) Underrated or (-) Troll
It makes perfect sense - Google and DoubleClick both make money from inserting ads into web sites. But while Google have some of the least intrusive/annoying ads, DoubleClick are at the opposite end of the spectrum. But then both of them have a reputation for gathering personal information, too. If this does happen, I hope Google makes DoubleClick ads less irritating, and not the other way around.
I don't care who buys it. I'll never see a DoubleClick ad again as long as Adblock Plus can be set to *doubleclick* . Whoever gets them gets a losing business model.
I remember a few years back, before Google's advertising services became popular, that using DoubleClick's ads on your site was all the rage. There used to be large groups of people who'd defend DoubleClick to the death, it seemed. Whenever talk of competitors' offerings arose, even the early ones of Google, these folks would come out in force just to prove you wrong. Sometimes they bordered on insanity. I recall one fellow asking me if I'd "shave my balls" for Google after I remarked that I liked how their ads were unobtrusive and relevant.
Now we hear virtually nothing from these people. I think that this whole situation just goes to show how some of the most significant online media companies can become irrelevant so quickly. The MySpaces and YouTubes of today will likely be long forgotten even in as little as two to three years.
There aren't any free email providers that aren't equally evil. I'm not even sure there is a pay email provider that's doesn't dabble in the dark arts.
Why don't double-click just put out a "buy double-click" ad. Then everyone can play!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Now my NoScript can block Google along with many other services!
...people fight to buy DoubleClick.
They probably pay more than that in fines.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
Google is getting seduced by the dark force...
Perhaps Google wants doubleclicks patents, with it they could potentially scare away any new comers into their cash cow ad business....
#
DoubleClick's "DART" Patent
# 5,948,061. This is DoubleClick's "DART" patent, entitled "Method of delivery, targeting, and measuring advertising over networks." Here is the abstract:
Methods and apparatuses for targeting the delivery of advertisements over a network such as the Internet are disclosed. Statistics are compiled on individual users and networks and the use of the advertisements is tracked to permit targeting of the advertisements of individual users. In response to requests from affiliated sites, an advertising server transmits to people accessing the page of a site an appropriate one of the advertisement based upon profiling of users and networks.
Google: "Don't Be Evil"
DoubleClick: "Be Evil"
This actually scares me... Google buying YouTube was a question of intelligence... seeing this is really a question of morals....
I don't think google's search engine is nearly as good as it used to be. These days, I seem to be flooding with ads which have nothing to do with I type.
As I understand it, the cost of using google's adsense is sky-rocketing.
Is google now going the way of doubleclick?
I guess I can't blame googe. They exist to make a profit. But, I might start looking elsewhere.
I guess Google are looking at it like this.
1. They manage to win the bidding war = one less adspace competitor and quite possibly more customers.
2. They manage to up the price by millions maybe even billions of dollars and one of their major competitors (Microsoft or Yahoo) ends up spending an inflated amount on something they would have bought even if Google didn't enter the race.
Google can't lose.
I seriously doubt they'd continue the marketing style of DoubleClick.
(I too didn't even realise doubleclick was still around *hugs adblock*)
"this figure could give Microsoft pause."
Inside bills mind: I will buy some shitty company for a few billion in order to f"ck with people forever!
Outside bills mind in a conference room: Are you crazy?
Inside bills mind: Pause.
Outside bills mind in a conference room: Look, hes thinking! Maybe there is hope.
Inside bills mind: I will buy some shitty company for a few billion in order to f"ck with people forever!!!
Call that a troll? Time to kill yourself coward. But you would probably just fsck that up, too.
I don't know much about DoubleClick, but from what I've heard people say about their ads and their company, they don't sound entirely desirable. It could be possible that Google might buy them simply so that their competitors (MS and Yahoo) don't. Lets face it, this is Google's territory, and I would not be surprised to see them go to extreme lengths (blowing 2Bil$) just to protect it and ensure their security. This could be Google flexing their muscles and screaming "I AM GOOGLE!" right in MS's face.
I don't mean to be a troll. I swear. But who thinks here that buying youtube, a company with a net profit of 0 was worth 1.65 billions? It may pay off, in the very long term. I'm willing to yield that. And I'll go as far as to say that doubleclick is a much, much better fit for google, it's an advertising company. However, the question we should ask now is, how profitable is doubleclick? It's not publicly traded anymore, so recent numbers are hard to come by (or at least they are hard to come by for me, feel free to correct me here). The best information I could find was their 2004 Q1 earnings report, at http://sec.edgar-online.com/2004/05/10/0000950123- 04-006076/Section7.asp. Their net earning for that period, if I read the document correctly, were 7.693 millions. That's not a huge profit, even if you multiply it by 4 to get a rough yearly earning. Unless their business has grown a LOT, it's unlikely to be worth 2 billions, especially if "parts of the company having already been sold off". Of course, they may not buy it at all, and this whole comment will be moot. However, if they do buy doubleclick, and if it hasn't grown has not grown a whole lot more profitable since 2004, I really think that these acquisitions of dubious value may will bring google stock way down from it's current value.
Isn't it possible, that Google is engaged in a little eBay-style shill bidding? Google doesn't really want Doubleclick. In fact, Google would probably prefer NOT to have DoubleClick, and not to have DoubleClick EXIST at all. Google just wants to deny Microsoft an opportunity, or failing that, make them pay WAY more than fair value for the privilege. Google can play the table for a few rounds in a bidding war with Microsoft, and then back away at the last second when they think Bill has reached his table stakes. Not that Bill can't afford to pay some amount, it's just that at some point, Microsoft will really regret lining Hellman & Friedman's pockets any more than they had to. Google doesn't care if H&F get rich, as long as it makes Bill poorer. ;)
And in Google's mind, it might not even be evil. It might be PREVENTING evil. If I were Google (and I'm not, darn it) I'd totally play it that way.
-- There is no truth. There is only Perception. To Percieve is to Exist.
Google is buying more and more companies that harvest user preference information. With their own service they know what kind of things people are looking for, what people they are in contact with and (if they're so inclined) what topics people discuss, with YouTube they know what kind of entertainment people enjoy to watch and what kind of content interests them, with doubleclick they'd know what "pathes" people take on their way through the WWW.
And to be honest, I don't even have an idea what other companies they scooped up on the road that we didn't even hear about. I'm quite sure a decent profiler has no trouble putting the puzzle together.
So my question is why. At least I know, I wouldn't collect that amount of data just for kicks.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No one on Slashdot has had to deal with doubleclick in *years*
In case there are some poor unfortunate souls that have had to deal with doubleclick and others, try this:
http://www.everythingisnt.com/hosts.html
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Fresh horses and more whiskey for my men.
... for companies such as Google and Microsoft. Once they become so wealthy that the dollars are meaningless, the next step is power, and DoubleClick offers this by being an intelligence source. Ain't no better way of being a step ahead.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Does that mean I get a reduction in the number of cookies I tell FireFox to reject?
Darn... I was getting used to saying no.
Okay, this is it. I've had it with the "don't be evil" crap. I'm moving to an open-source variant of search engines. Can anyone forward me a link?
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
So who is gona buy single click?
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
Waiting for ads.doubleclick.net..............
Bottom line they are in the race to buy out the competition. DoubleClick is Googles closest competitor.
....it's not like their corporate charter says "Buy no evil". :)
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
-Tom
I think that they're more likely to change the current definition of evil to not include what the company does, not vice versa. But that's just me.
http://www.skullsecurity.org/blog/
Google is the varacious acquisition machine that Microsoft never was. It's going to be very interesting to see how they cope with this growth. My prediction: in a year or so Google is floundering in terms of managemenet because they're trying to absorb so many different entities with different cultures and losing their focus on Search.
The moral is: "Be Evil!"
Then Google will pay you $$$$bilions$$$ so you don't have to be.
*sigh* If only World Domination was so easy...
Maybe Google is just interesting to raise the bid and slow down the buyer. Maybe the do want to buy them in order to "dismiss" them.