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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.
I agree: Google probably put the bid in to stop its rival Microsoft from entering the online advertising market in force. Plus, with with Microsoft menacing with its touted eye-tracking ad technology, Google may be anxious to keep MS out of the ring, at least through merger or acquisition.
As for the union of the opposite ends of the online ad spectrum, I think Google will influence DoubleClick more than vice-versa simply because it is the acquiring company and has the prerogative of tossing out all of the old management. I hope.
"All you need is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure." -- Mark Twain
Perhaps Google wants doubleclicks patents, with it they could potentially scare away any new comers into their cash cow ad business....
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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.
Or, it is to make Microsoft over-pay for Doubleclick. Their warchest has dwindled to under $30B for the first time in something like a decade. If they over-pay for Doubleclick, then it might just be one big brick in the wall, ultimately contributing to the death of two of the greatest evils ever to walk the Earth! Muahahahahaha!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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.