Google buys DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion

marvinalone writes "The New York Times reports that Google has purchased DoubleClick. That seems to be the conclusion to the speculation we've talked about earlier. From the article: 'Google reached an agreement today to acquire DoubleClick, the online advertising company, from two private equity firms for $3.1 billion in cash, the companies announced, an amount that was almost double the $1.65 billion in stock that Google paid for YouTube late last year.'"

Comments

Holy crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is teh loser.

Re:Holy crap

[pacalis]

No, consumer privacy is the loser.

Is the google's share of online ad market large enough to warrant a Justice investigation?

Re:Holy crap

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

$ cat /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 localhost mymachine
127.0.1.1 mymachine
127.0.0.1 *.google.com
127.0.0.1 *.doubleclick.*

Re:Holy crap

[mrchaotica]

No, consumer privacy is the loser.

We already lost when we started thinking of ourselves as "consumers" instead of "citizens" or "people." Whether Google bought DoubleClick or not, that wouldn't change.

whoa

[rbochan]

Now Microsoft's anti-spyware will absolutely flag it!

Re:whoa

[Rei]

Heh, Microsoft should be concerned with Google; they're everywhere that Microsoft wants to go, and if you don't keep moving as a corporation, you lose investors.

When I saw this headline, all I could think was "Google buys up another chunk of the internet." Seriously -- DoubleClick is everywhere. It's almost like google's trying to become the web.

Re:whoa

[Duhavid]

if you don't keep moving as a corporation, you lose investors.

I always thought the name of the game was to keep your focus
and not dilute your efforts. And as far as I can tell,
the only reason Google is everywhere that Microsoft wants to
go is because they see what Google does, and want to emulate
that. That is reactive, and seems like a sure way to lose
your way. I dont like Microsoft much as a company, but
in the past you had to give them credit for not losing
focus. They kept after things they started until they got
it basically usable, and mostly solid. And did a better
job of that than many other companies. Microsoft should
be concerned with finding the ( lawful ) strategies and
tactics that get them where they want to be, and stop letting
other companies define so much of thier roadmap.

Re:whoa

[neoform]

No.

Google is becoming the web's advertiser. Google offers close to no actual content.

Re:whoa

[Kazrael]

Somehow, /. needs to find a way to rearrange the Google name into "Skynet"

Re:whoa

[Yvan256]

Somehow, /. needs to find a way to rearrange the Google name into "Skynet"

Seems easy enough.

+12, -4, +10, +7, -7, +15

Re:whoa

[FormOfActionBanana]

  Google
+ Ldjggo
--------
  Skynet

Re:whoa

[Curtman]

Google offers close to no actual content.

I don't know about that. GMail, and Google Earth/Google Maps are very useful content. Sure, they are just another way to push more advertising, but it is content.

Re:whoa

[Frozen Void]

A chunk of the internet safely filtered for millions of machines.
Every decent hostfile has it,it adblocked by most firefox users and even some gateways.

Re:whoa

[fuzza]

And as far as I can tell, the only reason Google is everywhere that Microsoft wants to go is because they see what Google does, and want to emulate that. This seems reactive, and is a sure way to lose your way.

But as this post pointed out, that's all they've ever really done...

Re:whoa

[Alt321]

"I always thought the name of the game was to keep your focus and not dilute your efforts."


I wonder about the strategy though. Microsoft sniffs DoubleClick's leg, Google buys it.

If I could get Microsoft to sniff my 10 year old laptop, would Google buy that too?

Is it MS or Google that's being clever here? I'm leaning towards Google - but it's damn expensive move.

Re:whoa

[ceejayoz]

Unless you're signed up for some Google mailing lists, Gmail doesn't provide content, the people you're exchanging e-mail with are. Gmail's a host for other peoples' content, just like Google Search.

It's great, but it's not content.

Re:whoa

[Curtman]

Gmail doesn't provide content

Yes it does. It's an application, and a very useful one. That is "content".

Re:whoa

[ModDoc]

Yes, thanks, I agree with all those statements. An office suite *isn't* content; it simply facilitates the creation of content. Gmail isn't content, although it lets me share it with my colleagues. Google web search isn't content, but it makes it faster and easier to find content.

Re:whoa

[ozydingo]

But Google Maps? I'd call that content.

Re:whoa

[Duhavid]

A company I used to work at was victim of their vaporware,
so I know what you mean. But with Office and NT/200x,
( their core business, in my mind ), they have ridden
out some hard times, and perservered to see it through.

Re:whoa

[ceejayoz]

Absolutely, yes.

Re:whoa

[Locutus]

You missed the 20 years of history which show that Microsoft is a follower of "technology" and their only successes come from noticing what others are doing and then embedding a cheap copy into Windows and piping it out to everyone via the pre-install channel. Think of it like a sewer pipe Microsoft has to millions of desktops. The original inventor of the new technology ends up with nothing while Microsoft builds a ball of shit which is painted to LOOK like the original and then shovels it out those pipes to every computer shipped/sold. Users of these balls of crap think they have something cool but in fact, they are typically just Window-ized versions of the original and incompatible with anything else out there.

And that bit about them "keeping after things they started" goes, I hope you're not talking about PocketPC or Xbox because they are losing billions on those and have lost over $10 billion just on PocketPC( WinCE ) alone and I still hear people complaining of having to reboot their handhelds or phones. A REAL business can not continue to loose money on a product for over 10 years like Microsoft can and could not keep shoveling shit out the door and yet people still think its something else.

They are the greatest snake oil salesmen of our time. IMO.

Remember, Microsoft has not been successful outside of their monopoly( Windows Desktop ) and I mean profitable. Reacting is all they do and without the MS Windows sewer pipes, they're losers. Google is just making this more obvious.

LoB

Re:whoa

[ceejayoz]

Microsoft Office isn't content; your documents are.

Absolutely. Office's help files are content, though. Office apps are content containers, just like Gmail.

MSN (or whatever it's called these days) isn't content; your instant messages are.

Absolutely.

Windows isn't content; your data are.

Absolutely.

What's your definition of "content" then?

There are dictionary definitions for such things:

"Something contained, as in a receptacle. Often used in the plural: the contents of my desk drawer; the contents of an aerosol can." (Gmail and Office are like desk drawers or a pad of paper, as an analogy)
"The material, including text and images, that constitutes a publication or document."
"The substantive or meaningful part."

You've probably heard the phrase "content is king". Clearly, whoever said that didn't mean that an empty website is great and will attract visitors. No, the container - the website - needs actual content - good articles.

Re:whoa

[ceejayoz]

Under what definition is an application content?

Re:whoa

[Locutus]

Most, if not all, of that was purchased or demo'ed to keep customers from going to someone elses technology.
Read "Startup" by Jerry Kaplan( http://www.amazon.com/Startup-Silicon-Adventure-Je rry-Kaplan/dp/0735101418 )
for an early example of how this works/worked for Microsoft.

And look up DimensionX for a Java based company that had Microsoft in a bidding war with Sun Microsystems. Microsoft won and that was the end of the DimensionX productline. Coopers & Peters was another Java based company purchased and technologically discarded.

Microsoft is a marketing company who's sole tool is to use anti-competitive techniques to protect the supply chain it has pumping Microsoft Windows and Microsoft software out to OEMs and onto desktops. It's a sewer pipe IMO. ;-/

LoB

Re:whoa

[Curtman]

Under what definition is it not? Your definition includes html, but not javascript, java, perl, python, etc?

Re:whoa

[Duhavid]

I agree with much of what you say, and I have not missed
that Microsoft is not an innovator, nor have I missed how
Microsoft treats parters, competitors and others in the
tech field.

But I would say that PPC and Xbox are examples of what I am
talking about, they are still pushing those forward and
trying. They are persistant. I am not looking at success
from a financial standpoint, simply from the standpoint that
they have not abandoned things.

Note, that does not mean that I like it.

And I fully concur that Microsoft's main strenght is their
sales and marketing arm.

Re:whoa

[Upaut]

I always thought the name of the game was to keep your focus and not dilute your efforts.

A common mistake many people make. If you see the potential for your main marketable product to dwindle into nothingness, it is very common to start to branch out for stability. Take BP in the 70's and through the 80's. They bought up damn near every poultry line, and started massive breeding efforts. You wanted to buy some chickens for your egg laying company? You ordered the chicks from BP. You wanted to buy some turkeys to raise and feed your army (Russia, one of their largest clients...), you went to BP. You had a disease that wiped out a massive population of your chickens in you country? BP. Not something most associate with an oil company.

A good company is a great trunk, with smaller sections, run as independants, branching out. All feeding money back into the base. If one branch withers and dies, the company can keep growing strong.

Re:whoa

[ceejayoz]

HTML can be included, just as with the rest.

An empty HTML shell of a website isn't content, either. It's when you put useful stuff in it that you've got content.

Re:whoa

[Curtman]

It's when you put useful stuff in it that you've got content.

So you are saying that GMail, and the UI that drives Google Earth are useless?

There is a lot of code that makes up those applications. Somebody wrote all that stuff.

Re:whoa

[Curtman]

Google maps is pretty much their only content site. Everything else is just an aggregation of other people's content.

Google Maps is original content? You heard it here first. Neoform declares Google is God who created heaven and Earth.

Re:whoa

[neoform]

last i checked photographs of land is considered copyrightable, and therefore.. content.

Re:whoa

[zobier]

In base 26:

    google
  + kvjfro
    ------
    skynet

Re:whoa

[Curtman]

last i checked photographs of land is considered copyrightable, and therefore.. content.

So if being copyrightable is your litmus test, then how do you claim that the GMail and the Google Earth program aren't content? They were written by programmers and their code is copyrighted.

Re:whoa

[neoform]

Programs are rarely considered "content".

Re:whoa

[afaik_ianal]

Not meaning to nitpick here, but is there any chance you could leave the insertion of line breaks to our browsers? I feel like I'm meant to be reading a poem every time I read one of your posts, which distracts from your otherwise interesting and insightful posts.

Re:whoa

[Curtman]

We've already established that you aren't an authority on the subject. You'll have to do better than that.

Re:whoa

[neoform]

As a full time programmer, yes, I can say that.

Re:whoa

[Curtman]

And it's your professional opinion as a full time programmer that the GMail and Google Earth applications are useless and not copyrighted. Maybe you should look for a career that you know something about, like full time Slashdot troll.

Re:whoa

[neoform]

Replying to you is pretty much pointless.

I didn't ever say that software is "useless" and "not copyrighted", but it isn't classified as "content" any more than a jar is "content", instead the stuff you use it for (eg. jam) is "content".. software is merely the means to serve content.

why do you think people refer to some times of software as "Content Management Systems", the content is virtually never the software it'self, instead it's something else that is classifiable and sortable.

Yes, you COULD be counting a software *library*, but that's because your library of software is the content, not the application you're using to host it.

Anyway, have fun assuming i'm saying something other than i am.

Re:whoa

[Curtman]

Content in the context of what we are talking about (the web) is anything that draws people to a site. If you think that services like GMail, Google Search, Google Mail, Google Groups, Youtube, Blogger, Google Reader, Google Talk, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, etc aren't content then you are mistaken. Think of the synonym "Substance". Google has lots of it.

Re:whoa

[neoform]

"GMail, Google Search, Google Mail, Google Groups, Youtube, Blogger, Google Reader, Google Talk, Google Docs & Spreadsheets"

Every single one of these are simply aggregations of other people's work.

Re:whoa

[Curtman]

You say aggregation, I say service.

Re:whoa

[Locutus]

you are correct, there is also a leveraged monopoly with Microsoft Office. Because of the threat GNU/Linux brings to the growth of Microsofts Windows monopoly, Microsoft is attempting to tie business process functionality into the MS Office applications. But that's neither here nor there and simple fact is that the Microsoft Office monopoly was gained by leveraging their Microsoft Windows desktop monopoly and supply channel.

Regarding Microsofts Windows Server software, yes that is the last place they also make money and again, it's all based on the monopoly they've enjoyed with the MS Windows desktop. IMO.

LoB

Let me be the first one to say...

[logixoul]

Google is the new Microsoft. :^)

Re:Let me be the first one to say...

[Hawthorne01]

I, for one, welcome our new online advertising overlords, and I'd like to remind them that as a trusted member of Slashdot, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground click farms.

Re:Let me be the first one to say...

[linguizic]

Normally I get really annoyed when someone uses the ole "I for one...", but kudos to you for using the full quote.

obligatory

[User 956]

DoubleClick got owned!

no, really!

Re:obligatory

[twistedcubic]

Owned = black gangsta rap slang for "owning hoes", as in, women. It's fucking sexist.

Care to give a reference? Maybe it's a white gangsta rap term? Silly fool.

Re:obligatory

[Paradise Pete]

Owned = black gangsta rap slang for "owning hoes", as in, women. It's fucking sexist.

Words mean whatever the general population that uses them says they mean. Nobody using "owned" thinks it has anything to do with "hoes." And so guess what? It doesn't.

Re:obligatory

[Kwiik]

No, no.. he meant the other version of "Owned" i.e. "You got Owned because I'm a wannabe 1337 script kiddy who's too old to do it right and say you got pwnd so I assume that it means Owned instead of Pawn-ed". That's effin agist! :`( -- note the tear on poor smiley mans cheek (butt cheek). People so old they feel a need to properly gramaticize and spell things are teh people too!

Re:obligatory

[xiong.chiamiov]

I must protest. While you are correct that it is spelled "pwned", it still is pronounced "owned". Originally from a typo and such. Thus, we have Pure Pwnage ("Pure Ownage").

No Evil?

[Therin]

Huh? Anyone remember when DoubleClick tried to tie their cookies to privacy data a few years ago - now those people are in Google management. I fear the evil is creeping in the side door...

Re:No Evil?

[maxume]

Why do you think they will be in management at Google? Some big chunk of that price represents how much it is worth to Google to prevent Microsoft from owning Doubleclick.

Re:No Evil?

[QRDeNameland]

Huh? Anyone remember when DoubleClick tried to tie their cookies to privacy data a few years ago - now those people are in Google management. I fear the evil is creeping in the side door...

There's a hidden clause in the motto: "Don't be evil...outsource your evil instead!"

Won't change much for me

[bigtangringo]

Doubleclick is still blocked in every way, shape, and form available on my browser.

Re:Won't change much for me

[Hatta]

What happens when google absorbs doubleclick and starts sending ads from google.com instead of doubleclick.net?

Re:Won't change much for me

[SirTalon42]

Block the sub{directory,domain} that includes the ads. I doubt they'd do a better job for the doubleclick ads than they do for their own.

Re:Won't change much for me

[bigtangringo]

I suppose that depends how annoying they are, I currently disallow google ads at work, and allow them at home.

So long as they're small unobtrusive ads, I don't mind it very much.

Re:Won't change much for me

[EggMan2000]

In my case, I'm always waiting on the page content to load due to a slow ass Doubleclick server loading the ad in my browser. I've tried putting in host file entries to block doubleclick, but sometimes that does not even let the page load.

Re:Won't change much for me

[alphamugwump]

I block ads at my firewall with moblock/bluetack. Then, I block them again with privoxy. Then, I use the pgl blocklists with konqueror. I also change my MAC address every 3 hours, do all my browsing through Tor, and clear my cookies when I'm done.

Yeah, I'm a little obsessive.

Re:Won't change much for me

[humina]

Doesn't tor make your browsing really slow? Are you able to watch videos from places like youtube? I tried using tor and it was painfully slow.

Re:Won't change much for me

[daeg]

I had the same opinion until retarded eBay ads started showing up everywhere. No, just because I'm browsing an article about "postfix bugs" doesn't mean I want to buy a "BUG COLLECTION GUIDE at eBay" or "POSTFIX FOR DUMMIES EBOOK at eBay", etc.

Likewise, browsing website A will often give negative opinions of it, sponsored by website B. "Toolset A buggy? Try Toolset B!" etc.

That's when they got blocked.

Bad ad-approval monkeys. No banana for you.

Re:Won't change much for me

[emilv]

Yes, it's kind of slow, especially at peak hours, but it works!
They definitly need more servers running so if you have some spare bandwith I think they would love you for setting up a Tor server.

Re:Won't change much for me

[Slur]

You know what? That's not a bad bloody idea. If everyone on SlashDot agreed to run Tor - for a day, a week, or a month... call it "The Month Tor Got SlashDotted." I imagine the speed of Tor would go way up, wouldn't it?

.

Re:Won't change much for me

[GetSource]

Personally, I think "GooClick" is much more "hype friendly," but that's good too ;)

Re:Won't change much for me

[gad_zuki!]

Then you jsut block google's own ad servers, which Ive been doing for years with a simple hosts file. Works for all browsers/applications on my system. Also set your google never-expire tracking cookie to get deleted once per session and you're set.

Re:Won't change much for me

[TheGratefulNet]

its not the web cookies you have to worry about.

its the web brownies that will get you every time.

Re:Won't change much for me

[moogs]

Aaaand this is when slashdotters prove they're all talk but no action :P

Re:Won't change much for me

[noidentity]

How often do you change your slashdot userid?

Re:Won't change much for me

[sharkey]

You know when a Cub Scout becomes a Boy Scout?


When he eats his first Brownie!

Re:Won't change much for me

[acidrain]

What happens when google absorbs doubleclick and starts sending ads from google.com instead of doubleclick.net?

Can't imagine an ad filtering tool falling for the old "it's just google, they never serve ads" trick.

I threw in "Ad Block Plus" when I installed firefox a ways back, and now days I'm actually a little shocked when I see an ad on the net. It's like what the heck is that?!?

Re:Won't change much for me

[Emporer of Ice Cream]

You and the 10% or so of the Internet audience that block ads don't make anyone in advertising nervous - you're the niche that wouldn't click on the banner anyway. I manage ad ops for a decent sized publisher with a very savvy audience and a higher than normal Firefox userbase, and about 11% of our sessions are blocking ads. Easy enough to compare and get a good estimate. Interestingly, over the past year the percentage has trended down a little, from 13%.

Re:Won't change much for me

[icepick72]

Wow, when do you find the time to browse.

Re:Won't change much for me

[jareds]

Why change your MAC address? You realize the only one to see that is your ISP, and they can tie your traffic to you regardless, if they want. Perhaps a program running on your computer, such as spyware, might use your MAC address as a unique identifier, but surely someone like you would consider your computer totally compromised if it's running an untrusted program at all.

Re:Won't change much for me

[clashdot]

Which blocklist should I get for use with Konqueror? I went looking, found a bunch of list, none of which seemed to be "the" list and none of which promised to work with Konqueror. I realise this is a "Funny" post, but still. Thanks!

Re:Won't change much for me

[zippthorne]

And by untrusted I assume you mean at least one of the following:

A program not written by you,
compiled using a compiler not built from scratch by you,
And inputted directly in machine code,
On a computer not built from ICs by you,
With microcode not programmed by you,
Using a home-made voltage source

Did I miss anything? How soon can we expect the first "Gentoo for the really paranoid?"

Re:Won't change much for me

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

How often do you reformat the drive? If the answer's "never", you're owned, regardless.

Re:Won't change much for me

[alphamugwump]

Actually, I checked, and I realized I'm using Filterset.G, not PGL. But any flat list of domains would work. I'm pretty sure konqueror just matches regular expressions.

Re:Won't change much for me

[alphamugwump]

Well, if the cops come knocking on your door, you're owned regardless, anyway. But formatting won't delete the data or anything. To do it properly, you need to use a file shredder, or encrypt your whole volume. Or maybe you meant to clean out the rootkits? *shrug*

Re:Won't change much for me

[slarrg]

Just put thermite packets over your drives with a remote trigger. No one's gonna be able to reassemble the bits from the molten blob that's left.

Re:Won't change much for me

[Frozen Void]

I would of course start blocking google domain pictures,
or even google itself if they manage to get through(adblocking does not block direct site access).

Re:Won't change much for me

[gfreeman]

I have a telescope and I get my neighbour to do the browsing. I call him up to tell him which link to click.

Yeah I know the phone call can be tapped, but we've tried string and tin cans and they don't work when it rains, so we speak in a mish-mash of Afrikaans, Esperanto and squirrel noises.

Re:Won't change much for me

[Ciaran_H]

They bought .NET, of course.

Re:Won't change much for me

[clashdot]

Thanks! I got that and at least at the first glance it seems to be working. (For the record, I just downloaded the list and imported it in the ad filter page of the Konqueror configuration.)

Gawd, to be a fly on the wall in Balmers office

[Locutus]

On second thought, there's probably not a safe place IN Balmers office. LOL :-)

LoB

I felt a great disturbance in the Force...

[h4ter]

...as if millions of chairs suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

Hmmm

[huckamania]

3.1 billion to pretty much lock up the on-line advertising market. I wonder what percentage of the on-line advertising market will push Google into Monopoly territory. I would guess they are getting pretty close.

I wonder how long until it becomes obligatory to hate Google...

Re:Hmmm

[apathy maybe]

Hate them now. Use their products if you want, but hate them anyway.

Seriously though, Google doesn't have a monopoly on on-line text advertising (even pay per-click), Yahoo has got into that business (formally Overture)[http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com] and I'm sure other companies have as well. This [http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/columns/executiv e_tech/article.php/3395571] article has some interesting comments on the matter of fraud.

And there are still heaps of other advertisers out their, and you know what, I block almost all of them (Adblock and NoScript, 'tis great). (For most sites, it is seriously, if they can't cope without my viewing their ads (even if I'm never going to ever buy anything), then I guess I can do without them. For sites like this, I like to think that I am helping to contribute to more people coming here by having insightful and interesting comments. After all, that is what gets the people looking at the site, and thus the ads.)

What ever happened to ...

[LorenzoV]

... "Do no evil?"

Every doubleclick host that I can identify is permanently blocked here for web bugs and Dartmail. I don't see that changing any time soon, either.

One could hope that Google will change Doubleclick's behavior before putting their own name on the services.

Re:What ever happened to ...

[dreamchaser]

"Do no evil", if it was ever anything other than clever PR, went away the moment they caved to China. It actually probably went away, again if it ever was even a real credo, long before that.

Re:What ever happened to ...

[romland]

This is pretty 'unevil' in my book. Well, let me defend that statement with: So far.

It's not like Google needed to buy DoubleClick for any other reason than stopping someone else from acquiring them. They stopped being a serious competitor years ago. Now, if Microsoft got their hands on them and threw a lot of cash at the business, that'd be a whole different story.

*shrug*

Re:What ever happened to ...

[dwater]

> It actually probably went away, again if it ever was even a real credo, long before that.

Right. It's nothing to do with China; it's to do with American greed, plain and simple. It started (IMO) at the IPO.

Re:What ever happened to ...

[binkzz]

If Google had not caved in and insisted China change its ways, I would have considered it more evil. They just obeyed the local law; if you want to blame anyone, blame China.

Re:What ever happened to ...

[suv4x4]

... "Do no evil?"

Stop crying about it. This is yesterday's news, as we know all corporations are evil by definition.

The new rage is corporations which are open to how evil they are, such as Microsoft's new slogan for 2008 "We're evil", and Yahoo's campaign "Tell us how we can be evil for you today", trying to tighten Yahoo's communication with their users.

Google is also planning a new PR image, but since it would be quite shocking to their existing fans, the search engine plants a gradual transition, where they will change their slogan every month such as "Evil 5%", "Evil 10%", "Evil 15%" until they reach 100%.

Re:What ever happened to ...

[Faylone]

"publicly traded company" happened.

Re:What ever happened to ...

[jefu]

I thought it was "Don't be evil" and evidently not "Don't buy evil".

Re:What ever happened to ...

[Gregb05]

Kill leftie. Wars with warcrimes are about the same as wars without. The orphans and hearts are small potatoes in comparison to the tyrants, placed for sympathy, as is the loved one. The secondary benefits are about the only difference, and it comes down to whether you would like cancer or moral philosophy. As I would rather have no cancer and no stupid shit questions like this, Kill leftie and cure cancer.

Re:What ever happened to ...

[pimp0r]

In what way was it evil of Google to make a site with .cn domain follow chinese law?
Unlike Yahoo and the rest of the pack they didn't actually change their .com site based on whether the user was accessing it from china.

If you want to complain about cooperation with the chinese government you should complain about Yahoo handing out email details so their government can arrest dissidents.

Re:What ever happened to ...

[dreamchaser]

Your long winded and totally offbase reply aside, where did I say I claimed to do no evil? I didn't, yet you erroneously ascribed moral superiority to my statement nonetheless. I merely pointed out that the 'do no evil' motto was nothing more than PR with no substance. Obviously I hit a nerve with that factual statement.

I read Camus when you were probably still in diaper, by the way. Of course I could be wrong, but your post smacks of someone with too much education and not enough sense or experience.

I can't believe I even wasted 2 minutes of my life replying.

Re:What ever happened to ...

[DanTheLewis]

You could be wrong.

It's not offbase to ask the person who sneers at "do no evil" to think about their own standards. Are your principles just PR because you've had to make difficult moral decisions, or even evil decisions? Does being a corporation imply that Google must be full of it, while you should be forgiven?

"Do no evil" is an impossibly high bar that Google has chosen to be accountable to. When they screw up, they get to hear about it from cynics like you, who pretend to see the world through black-and-white glasses, and pretend that the moral sense is absolute and good and evil are obvious. As five seconds reading the two brains thing should convince you, there's no pony in seeing the world this way (here's a link, by the way).

I don't work for Google. The nerve you hit, I guess, is the one that can't bear to see idealism being trashed for no reason. In the world we do have, hope for something better is all we've got. If corporate accountability is it, so be it.

Re:What ever happened to ...

[Torodung]

"Do no evil" was replaced by this:

"Publicly traded corporation"

We apologize for the inconvenience.

I hope it was for the client list

[spyrochaete]

I sincerely hope Google will simply replace all DoubleClick-crippled sites with AdSense. DoubleClick's tracking cookies are the reason I block web ads.

Re:I hope it was for the client list

[42forty-two42]

You do know that adsense keeps tracking cookies too, right?

Re:I hope it was for the client list

[Blakey Rat]

So does every advertising network. It's great for targeting ads so when you visit a site you don't see (if you're a guy) tampon ads, you only see ads relevant to the sites you visit regularly. Personally I'm a fan of them considering they're not really tracking anything I care about, and I don't really like seeing ads for things like tampons.

Re:I hope it was for the client list

[hostyle]

biscuitist!

Re:I hope it was for the client list

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, might want to know more about how ad sense works then before making that statement.

Doubleclick operated under the '3rd party' cookie system. Sites hosted thier cookies, and users of modern browsers had the ability to decide, or 'opt in' to being tracked by third party cookies. Of course, most browsers by default blocked them, and life was good.

Google ad sense operates on a different level...using cookies is just part of the game. Via IP pingbacks, toolbar tracking, and account identification, users may unkowningly be giving out alot more data than they realize.

Say for instance that you use Gmail. or any Google service that requires login. Google can track you via that login to each site you visit that has a google ad (70% of the net from what I understand). See, doubleclick never had this part of the equation...they never had account info. Google can tie your IPs, usernames, email content, and web browsing activity...and you can't do jack about it (short of blocking the google scripts themselves).

Even without login account info, Google has the ability to track your individual machine via IP pingbacks. If you nav to page one, the google ad gets your exposed ip, then the next page you visit that has a google ad...yep..that ip is used to track that navigation. No cookie needed. Of course, if your behind a firewall, only the firewall ip would get exposed. But still...do you really want to give anyone that much information about you?

Re:I hope it was for the client list

[sidb]

I block tracking cookies, and I don't see ads for tampons. In fact, I don't see any ads at all, because I block them, too.

Re:I hope it was for the client list

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

Install the CustomizeGoogle extension in Firefox (blocks Google Analytics cookies) and use a separate browser (Opera works well) for Gmail. Problem solved.

Re:I hope it was for the client list

[geekoid]

But some how, Googled managed to get ads that are actually relevent, and sometimes helpfull.

Re:I hope it was for the client list

[tokul]

DoubleClick's tracking cookies are the reason I block web ads.

Then start blocking urchin cookies. Come with any site that uses google analytics. Are added with javascript and use site's domain instead of third party domain used in doubleclick. In some cases trackers use img tags instead of javascript.

Re:I hope it was for the client list

[tieTYT]

That's very interesting. I notice firefox comes with this little text field at the upper right where I can type something in and go directly to the google results page. Does that count as one of the toolbars they use to track people?

If yes, does that mean mozilla indirectly is violating my privacy?

Now slashdot needs a new meme

[bugnuts]

Gootube was easy.....

Doogleclick?

Doobleclick?

Goobleclick?

Youtoogleclick?

Re:Now slashdot needs a new meme

[dorath]

Goobleclick?

GoobleclickTube?

Re:Now slashdot needs a new meme

[Sig.Baldi]

I think GoobleTube is cute enough...

Re:Now slashdot needs a new meme

[TristanGrimaux]

Double-Google? Google-Click? Dougle-Glick?

Re:Now slashdot needs a new meme

[HOTTILA.COM]

YouGoClick

Re:Now slashdot needs a new meme

[Rakshasa Taisab]

The problem is that you are limiting yourself to the first part of the word...

What about DoubleGoock?

Re:Now slashdot needs a new meme

[SleepyHappyDoc]

Google-click sounds like it should be fighting Superman. Or transforming into a truck.

Re:Now slashdot needs a new meme

[AmiAthena]

Personally, I'm rooting for DoubleGoo.

Re:Now slashdot needs a new meme

[jeevesbond]

Goebbelclick Popup ads for keywords such as 'Panzer' or 'u-boat'.

Re:Now slashdot needs a new meme

[AmiAthena]

Or, so as not to exclude YouTube, DoubleGooTube.


Sounds tasty.

Re:Now slashdot needs a new meme

[Carpe PM]

GoClickYourself!

Re:Now slashdot needs a new meme

[kavau]

Easy.

2 * 10^100

Question

[3m_w018]

If they clean house (like they should), do they still turn a profit? Or do they eat less of a loss than if they left them alive (as broke and limping as they were)? They do get their clientèle, which is good for them. They also get a larger (if almost all) of the internet advertising market...

Re:Question

[Yaa 101]

Of course they do as it costs virtually nothing when you can use your ultra expensive stocks to buy stuff without a need to liquidate any money thus being safe against hedge funds and other sharks.
This means they are in a luxurious position for a certain time to come, during this time window they have to strategically buy companies that are in their way and companies that are building new things before that window closes.
I think that the Doubleclick company was from the "in the way" category, so it does not even matter then whether that company had something to offer in general, parts of it do anyway.

Within 10 year they will be as nasty as MS is now, they have to be, it has to do with the way that business is built.

"Don't Be Evil?"

[ewhac]

Great. Now which of the myriad of Google's cookies will I need to block?

Schwab

Re:"Don't Be Evil?"

[illegalcortex]

Turns out it's "Don't be evil", not "Don't buy evil."

Re:"Don't Be Evil?"

[AmberBlackCat]

All of them.

Re:Patent infrigment suits..

[hostyle]

"its trouble-dick! i tell you!" - George FKR Bush

Re:Hmmm, the beast grows

[hostyle]

eh. i am actually a rocket scientist (and yes my talent is wasted here). The answer to your rather obvious question is "when people stop buying their shares".

It's f*****d company all over again.

[mauledbydogs]

Ok - so maybe that's harsh. But $3.1billion for the company? That provides a technology Google have already? I'm sure the decision makers over there know a lot more than me (hell, I've been drinking for the last eight hours) - but key Doubleclick partners (such as News Corp) aren't going to be too hot on Google suddenly knowing their ad business inside out. This smacks of splashing the cash to kill competition - had Microsoft picked up Doubleclick, that would have presented a serious challenge to Google's display ad syndication business.

Re:It's f*****d company all over again.

[Araxen]

3.1 Billion or let Microsoft automatically become the #2(Maybe #1?) On-line advertising service on the Internet? Which do you think Google is going to choose?

Re:It's f*****d company all over again.

[LiquidCoooled]

They just bought themselves the webstats for however millions more websites.
Every time a person downloads a webpage, the chances are google knows about it.

They know:

Who you are talking to.
What you are searching for.
What you are looking at.
Where you are interested in.
When you are doing things.

No wonder they want to give free wifi, Brin and Page are information vampires.

Re:It's f*****d company all over again.

[coredog64]

Microsoft bidding on DoubleClick brings to mind the following joke:

A duck hunter is out early one morning hunting ducks. He's not having a lot of luck and he's about ready to pack it in and go home.
Then he catches a break and shoots a duck. The duck falls to the ground on the other side of a fence. He hops the fence to grab the duck
and a farmer appears from nowhere and asks "What are you doing with my duck?" The hunter says "That's my duck! I shot it." The farmer replies "Doesn't matter -- it's on my land. But I'll tell you what. We'll take turns kicking each other in the nuts as hard as we can until one of us gives up. The winner keeps the duck. Oh, and I kick first." So the farmer winds up and kicks the hunter square in the nuts. The pain is so awful the hunter throws up and then collapses. 10 minutes later, he tentatively gets to his feet and says "Okay, my turn." To which the farmer replies "That's okay, you can keep the duck."

I have a sneaking suspicion Microsoft wasn't that interested in DoubleClick. But they wanted to make damn sure that Google overpaid for it.

Re:It's f*****d company all over again.

[hostyle]

Drinking for eight hours and still spelling perfectly? You, sir, are a fibber!

Re:It's f*****d company all over again.

[monkey_dongle]

Not to be too rude, but where the hell else is online advertising?! *** This PSA has been brought to you by the Department Of Redundancy Department.

Re:It's f*****d company all over again.

[sharkey]

Heh, "I'll Ro-sham-bow you for it"

Re:It's f*****d company all over again.

[The Bungi]

I have a sneaking suspicion Microsoft wasn't that interested in DoubleClick. But they wanted to make damn sure that Google overpaid for it.

Well, in any event if Microsoft had outbid Google everyone would be up in froth screaming that they can't innovate, compete, etc. and they have to buy everyting. So it's just as well.

Re:It's f*****d company all over again.

[Idbar]

3.1 Billion dollars won't change my hosts file:

...
127.0.0.1 atdmt.com
127.0.0.1 adbrite.com
127.0.0.1 doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 googlesyndication.com
...

But if they can get the money from doubleclick customers... good for them.

Re:It's f*****d company all over again.

[Emporer of Ice Cream]

Google doesn't really have the technology DoubleClick has. DFP and DFA are a whole different class of advertising tools. What they've done here is take the lead in publisher-side display ad serving and agency ad distribution, to complement their lead in search/text-based advertising.

Smart move, really. Except that most DFP customers are major publishers like NYTimes and CNN. They view Google as competition. I doubt they'll be very happy with their competition owning their ad server.

There's quite a few enterprise ad servers out there and switching is relatively easy. It'll be interesting to see how much of the DFP customer base Google can keep. If they manage to keep most of those major publishers, I suspect this will be one of their smartest business moves yet.

If they let them all get away to Zedo, Atlas/Accipiter, 24/7, Helios or one of the few other enterprise ad servers, they're screwed. The agencies will follow. With Atlas' purchase of Accipiter this year, there's now a potentially real competitor to DoubleClick's DFA/DFP industry lock. Quick and tight integration between Atlas for agencies and Accipiter for publishers could absorb much of DoubleClick's business before Google even knows what happened.

If I was in charge of Atlas, I'd be contacting the folks at 24/7 and Zedo and anyone else serving ads at scale, and lock up tight integration between Atlas' agency tools and those ad servers.

Re:It's f*****d company all over again.

[mauledbydogs]

Talk to the hangover, the brain's not listening. At least, not this morning :(

Re:It's f*****d company all over again.

[turbofisk]

Better to use 0.0.0.0, since if you have a webserver running it would make alot of requests...

Re:It's f*****d company all over again.

[shish]

Bah, I can drink coke for 12 hours and people still feel safe making me the designated driver :)

Re:It's f*****d company all over again.

[Sassinak]

This should be fun..

Doubleclick got by because they kept a, relatively speaking, low profile (except to those in the know or those that wanted to know).. I wonder if google will keep the same. Or will we see another youtube debate going on.. (he Big 4 getting cozy with Youtube.. then google comes along, and they respond "Wait, you HAVE money.. No Content for you, AND we are suing you because we want your money too").

I suspect this is a bad move.. it may work.. but its going to be painful for a while.

Confrimation on the Google Blog

[stereoroid]

Here you go. The PDF FAQ they put there confirms the terms: $3.1 billion. Apart from that, I second/third/fourth the previous comments: zero impact here, DoubleClick has been on my blacklist for years now, by any means available.

No matter who buys it...

[IthnkImParanoid]

...it's still called shit.

Re:No matter who buys it...

[sl3xd]

It's not called "shit" anymore.

It's "Shit Vista"

Re:No matter who buys it...

[hresult]

You sound like an idiot

Re:No matter who buys it...

[Talian]

Expensive shit.

Re:Gookle +1 MS-1

[apathy maybe]

As I said above, no Google don't have a monopoly on online advertising. Not even text based pay-per view.

Yahoo have got into the business as well (when they bought Overture I think). There are also heaps of others, from my Adblock list,
adsdk
fastclick
bluestreak
adsfac
mediaplex
serving-sys
tribalfusion
And heaps more. Not to mention all the individual site advertising (http://ads.guardian.co.uk for example).

Those generic eBay ads

[Kelson]

I had the same opinion until retarded eBay ads started showing up everywhere. No, just because I'm browsing an article about "postfix bugs" doesn't mean I want to buy a "BUG COLLECTION GUIDE at eBay" or "POSTFIX FOR DUMMIES EBOOK at eBay", etc.

I was once looking for information on Nigerian scams, a.k.a. 419 scams, a.k.a. advance fee fraud scams. And, I kid you not, among the ads on the Google results page for "nigerian scam" was an ad that read:

Nigerian Scam
Looking for Nigerian Scam?
Find exactly what you want today
www.ebay.com

I found the same type of ad for "419 scam," then did some random searches, and at the time, eBay seemed to have picked up a whole bunch of two-word phrases.

Re:Those generic eBay ads

[Burning Plastic]

Still doesn't compare to the "Buy Steve Irwin Dead on eBay" offers that were popping up after the event...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/05/ebay_steve _irwin/

Re:Those generic eBay ads

[avirrey]

Heh, anyone else empty their SPAM folder on Gmail and get RSS feeds for SPAM Recepies.... ahahahahaha... Morons!

~A
--
X's and O's for all my foes.

Re:Those generic eBay ads

[r3m0t]

That's a deliberate joke.

Re:Those generic eBay ads

[xiong.chiamiov]

I don't ever open my spam folder. I now trust Google's spam filter completely, and it deletes anything older than 30 days automatically...

Almost = $200 million

[mphase]

I would just to point out that the paltry amount which would bring that $3.1 billion from "almost double" to actually double is $200 million dollars. That just plain sucks.

Goddamn corporations and their stock, even if it is Google.

Re:Almost = $200 million

[maxume]

They paid cash yo.

3.1 billion

[wilsonthecat]

Can someone explain how Doubleclick is worth $3.1 billion? Are they hoping to receive this amount of money back in revenue off Doubleclick, I'm confused as to how they can price Doubleclick at that amount.

From my limited knowledge of banner ads, the click through rate is typically 1%, and anything from 10c to 50c per click through.

Youtube obviously has massive potential, but Doubleclick?

Re:3.1 billion

[HOTTILA.COM]

Yup Google got Double Charged....hehhehe

Re:3.1 billion

[hkmarks]

Say 1 billion people use the internet every day, with an average of 50 page views per person (rough guess). Now for some really rough guesses... say 0.1% of those page views have a Doubleclick ad on them and there is a 1% clickthrough with an average $0.25 payout per clickthrough. 1000000000 * 50 * .1% * 1% * $.25 = 125000 U.S. dollars / day. Not enough, so clearly my numbers are wrong. Let's try 1% of pages with Doubleclick ads: 1000000000 * 100 * 1% * 1% * $.25 = $2.5 million / day Possibly, but it still seems a little low. 2%? Maybe with a greater number of pageviews? 1250000000 * 150 * 2% * 1% * $.25 = $9.4 million / day Now we're getting somewhere. *totally pulled those numbers out of magic number hat*

Re:3.1 billion

[heinousjay]

You're forgetting about the massive database of information Doubleclick has compiled by now. Doubleclick sells ads but they have also been in the information gathering business for years.

Re:3.1 billion

[jbengt]

According TFA, doubleclick had $300,000,000 of revenue last year. So, even if that was all profit, Google might not expect to get it's money back in 10 years. They either think that it'll grow fast under them, or they bought it to keep others from buying it.

Re:3.1 billion

[maxume]

Stocks with lots of growth often trade at more than 20 times earnings. DoubleClick could easily be earning 100 Million on those revenues, putting the deal at 30 times earnings. It isn't that out of line with big financial deals.

Re:So what?

[Aladrin]

You'd lose that bet. I block Doubleclick but not Google because I don't find Google's ads to be invasive and annoying.

Sad to say, but

[Mateo_LeFou]

I'm not in total disagreement with you, my googlove notwithstanding. I don't get it; what's the hook. I haven't made an http request to doubleclick in years, on account of m4d hosts file management skillz.

Usually when google picks up a property, it's one with a bit of vision. Does DC have something technologically interesting under the hood somewhere?

Re:Sad to say, but

[FutureDomain]

Does DC have something technologically interesting under the hood somewhere? Think a minute about all the advertising capital that Doubleclick has! It has banner ads everywhere, and advertising partners to buy all those ads. Now every Doubleclick advertising partner is also a Google advertising partner. Google is positioning itself as the Internet advertising company.

Although I also wandered what Google was getting itself into buying a company that notoriously places tracking cookies on computers everywhere, I can see what they're trying to do. I only hope that Google will clean them up instead of Doubleclick dirtying Google. They should stop putting tracking cookies on people's computers, remove any tracking cookies already on the computer, and deny any overly flashy banner ads. That would strongly increase Google's credibility and help eliminate some of the garbage on the Internet.

Re:Sad to say, but

[bberens]

I agree. The price is so high not because Doubleclick's advertising is so high, but because Google wanted to pick them up before Microsoft or some other advertising company bought/merged with them. It might have been expensive, but if you're looking to monopolize the online advertising market, no price is too high to sweep the feet out from under competitors.

Re:Sad to say, but

[Anonymous Coward]

> I haven't made an http request to doubleclick in years, on account of m4d hosts file management skillz.

Right, but you don't have google in that hosts file, do you?

Re:Sad to say, but

[rm69990]

As if Google doesn't track user behavior through adsense...

They are a data mining company after all.

Re:Sad to say, but

[recharged95]

But using tracking cookies has been a cornerstone for DC's success--why spend weeks datamining when you can just grab a resident state... And if it makes gobs of $$$, why 'make it better' unless you've solved the risks in overhauling a system?

Re:Sad to say, but

[roystgnr]

I only hope that Google will clean them up instead of Doubleclick dirtying Google.

I do too, but this initial strategy of "rewarding their owners with billions of dollars" isn't a good sign.

Re:Sad to say, but

[gasmasher]

I'm not in total disagreement with you, my googlove notwithstanding.

My wife made me throw out my googlove. It was standing on it's own.

Re:Sad to say, but

[Prune]

Are you shitting me? Google's tracking is far more nefarious. I quote another post from this thread by an Anonymous Coward:

Google ad sense operates on a different level...using cookies is just part of the game. Via IP pingbacks, toolbar tracking, and account identification, users may unkowningly be giving out alot more data than they realize.

Say for instance that you use Gmail. or any Google service that requires login. Google can track you via that login to each site you visit that has a google ad (70% of the net from what I understand). See, doubleclick never had this part of the equation...they never had account info. Google can tie your IPs, usernames, email content, and web browsing activity...and you can't do jack about it (short of blocking the google scripts themselves). Even without login account info, Google has the ability to track your individual machine via IP pingbacks. If you nav to page one, the google ad gets your exposed ip, then the next page you visit that has a google ad...yep..that ip is used to track that navigation. No cookie needed. Of course, if your behind a firewall, only the firewall ip would get exposed. But still...do you really want to give anyone that much information about you?

Re:Sad to say, but

[zobier]

Sometwo please mod this +1.

Re:Sad to say, but

[Prune]

What's sometwo?

Re:Sad to say, but

[infidel13]

Behold the death of internet privacy.

Re:Sad to say, but

[zobier]

Well, if someone modded you +1 you'd have +4, but if two did you'd have +5.

Actually

[JYD]

I thought it was Google who would bring balance to the Force, not leave it in Darkness.

Re:Actually

[Bamafan77]

I thought it was Google who would bring balance to the Force, not leave it in Darkness.

Unless misread the prophecies were.

they never said BUY no evil...

[Anonymous Coward]

:)

Re:So what?

[maxume]

I don't bother with blocking ads. To emphasize the point, I'm on dial up. (I do have flash block installed in Firefox, so it only runs when I want it to, getting rid of the stuff that makes noise)

So what?

[porkThreeWays]

I keep seeing comments about doubleclick being blocked. So? You account for such a small portion of the userbase why would google care? They didn't buy doubleclick for the domain or technology anyway, they bought it for the customers. Most likely they'll convert all of their doubleclick accounts to google ads, which far fewer people block. They also bought it to be a cock block against other companies trying to get to the #1 position of internet advertising.

haha

[Traa]

You think you are in pain for having to swallow that our great Google bought doubleclick?

Ha, you could imagine it like this: The people at doubleclick just got paid 3.1 BILLION dollars.

By Google.

Have a great weekend.

Re:haha

[TheRagingTowel]

Ha, you could imagine it like this: The people at doubleclick just got paid 3.1 BILLION dollars. Slashdot Admins! I really need my +1 Terrifying now! (and I got mod points, I'm serious!)

Strategy?

[slashdotusername]

This may have been part of a strategy to make sure that nobody else bought DoubleClick first. The last thing Google wants is for Microsoft to try to take over their most profitable field. Even if Google never touches DoubleClick's materials after this, they don't have to worry about someone else having that "advantage" over Google.

Re:Patent infrigment suits..

[lejerdemayn]

why? the name's probably not gonna be around for long

Re:Gookle +1 MS-1

[larry bagina]

Microsoft's financials are easy to find. 6.8 billion in cash, 22 billion in short term investments, and 9 billion in long term investments. Google, for comparison, has 3.5 billion in cash, 8 billion in short term investments, and 1 billion in long term investments. [numbers as of dec 31, 2006]

I need some help with my morals

[heinousjay]

What exactly is the dollar value over which things become evil? I missed the indoctrination meeting when I signed up for Slashdot.

Re:D'OH!

[mikeisme77]

While I agree with the $3.1 billion probably being far too much for DoubleClicks assets... I disagree with the block list thing, as the vast majority of Internet users do not use AdBlock or any other similar ad blocking software. Yes, a lot of us geeks use that stuff (I don't, as I just ignore them), but then a lot of us geeks are the ones least likely to click on ads and buy the stuff they're selling. Now as to the reason why they would be willing to pay the $3.1 billion for DoubleClick, it's clearly to prevent Microsoft (and/or Yahoo!) from buying a sizable chunk of the online advertising business, plus it now increases the size of Google's very profitable ad business.

Within a few years.

[elgee]

I fully expect to see "Google buys USA for 12.4 trillion"

Re:Within a few years.

[Anonymous Coward]

No need to pay all that money, just buy some senators; much cheaper!

Re:Within a few years.

[slashdotusername]

I thought we wanted them to "Do No Evil"?

Re:Within a few years.

[Petey_Alchemist]

Judging by recent events, I'm sure Karl Rove will sell you a United States Attorney for less than that.

$3B - what GOOD could have been done..

[TheGratefulNet]

..with that?

I don't even know what 3 billion dollars is. the number is too mind bogglingly big.

what good things ('do no evil', huh?) could have been better accomplished rather than put so much money into an advertising firm's pocket?

Re:$3B - what GOOD could have been done..

[geekoid]

"Do No Evil" does not mean "Do good"

Re:$3B - what GOOD could have been done..

[maxume]

US GDP is ~12 trillion dollars. (3/12000)*365*24=2.19 hours of GDP(or six if you assume 8 hours of work a day...). Mind bogglingly big human numbers are redeemed by the mind boggling size of the world.

Re:$3B - what GOOD could have been done..

[maxume]

Oops. Make that 45 minutes if you assume 8 productive hours in a day.

Re:$3B - what GOOD could have been done..

[adisakp]

I don't even know what 3 billion dollars is. the number is too mind bogglingly big

It buys about a week and a half in Iraq... we're heading on 5 years... do the math.

Re:$3B - what GOOD could have been done..

[StarfishOne]

... do the math.

And think about education, healthcare and the grandchildren of our country... =/

The Tragedy of the Template

[jhoger]

The best one I saw was something like

Babies
Looking for Babies?
Find exactly what you want today
www.ebay.com

Re:The Tragedy of the Template

[LurkerXD]

Hey, don't laugh, slashdotters could seriously use that, seeing as how we have no chance of ever getting to make them the natural way...

Not Evil

[kahrytan]

Did anyone stop and think Google is not interested in being evil like Doubleclick?
From the article:

The sale offers Google access to DoubleClick's advertisement software and, more importantly, its relationships with Web publishers, advertisers and advertising agencies.

It also gives Google access to the data that Doubleclick has acquired. Doubleclick will probably be no more and merge into Google's Adsense.

Re:Not Evil

[Aladrin]

Yes, but that doesn't stop the previous owners from being evil. It does, however, give them 3.1 billion dollars with which to continue being evil.

I think it's fairly obvious that Google can de-evil Doubleclick if they want to. I think it's also fairly obvious that it won't happen overnight, and that entire time Google will not be following its slogan.

Re:Not Evil

[pacalis]

"Doubleclick will probably be no more and merge into Google's Adsense"

Are you serious? You don't spend $3B to throw something away.

Google can't do non-text ads worth shit. They don't have much in the way business devlopment, hardly any sales force. They do spot contracting (auctions) - they don't really have "relationships". In non-text ads they can't predict quality, and they are completely uselss here. With the new data, plus their existing assets, they will become Doubleclick on steriods.

Re:D'OH!

[geminidomino]

A good point, if poorly executed.

The cynic in me is wondering: What if this was a Microsoft ploy. Everyone said Google was bidding to drive the price up for MS... what if MS was only feigning interest so that google would drop 3 Gigabills on something that is pretty much blocked to hell and back by anyone with clue.

Google + Doubleclick

[BillGatesLoveChild]

Imagine the targeted tracking they can do by correlating your Google Searches with Doubleclick targeted advertising! I know we regularly threaten to do this and never mean it, but how are the other search engines these days? (Don't say Clusty.com: I tried them and linking to the 'wayback machine' doesn't qualify as [Cache])

Official Google Blog Announcement

[slashdotusername]

Official Google Blog: Next Step In Google Advertising

Evil began with email?

[AHumbleOpinion]

I fear the evil is creeping in the side door...

Really, I thought home-grown "evil" emerged when they decided to scan your email in order to better target advertising. Of course, they can argue you volunteered to have your emails scanned.

Re:Evil began with email?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

"they can argue you volunteered to have your emails scanned."


Well, you agreed to the Terms of Use. Don't like 'em? Go to Yahoo.

Re:Evil began with email?

[Russellkhan]

Don't like 'em? Go to Yahoo

No good. I started avoiding Yahoo for their horrible TOS and privacy policies before Google even released Gmail as beta.

They did it to change DoubleClick

[slashdotusername]

The Official FAQ for the announcement claims that they did this because "Our goal is to make advertising on the internet work better: better for users with less intrusive ads and better privacy protection, better for advertisers with greater accountability and effectiveness, and better for publishers with improved monetization and cleaner site integration." In other words, they thought DoubleClick was intrusive, but they're too nice to say it.

Re:They did it to change DoubleClick

[swordgeek]

I can't imagine when I was ever that optimistic. Here's my interpretation:

"DoubleClick is making money and everyone hates them. If we buy them and scale back the degree of shit, people will think we're a good company, our profits will go up, and we'll have lowered the bar for 'not evil' even further."

Google is a shitty company with a great service, who just bought out a profitable and even shittier company with a shitty service. The only rationale for any of this is to make cash for the owners.

In weight?

[iago-vL]

Let's say they paid in $100 bills. That's 31,000,000 bills. Say each pack of 10 bills weighs 1 gram. That's 3,100,000 grams, or 3,100kg. That's about the weight of a car. In $100 bills. Conservatively.

Does that help?

search for US Congressmen on yahoo

[maxwells_deamon]

and look at the paid adds on the right. The RIAA did it, why can't we?

Re:D'OH!

[tomhudson]

... its because of their new motto - "Do no evil - buy it wholesale instead".

I don't know anyone who doesn't block doubleclick.

Re:Patent infrigment suits..

[mcpkaaos]

All the more reason to support the folk(s) over at Perceptive Pixel. Let's get rid of clicks altogether. I'm talkin' to you, too, Amazon!

Time to get paid...

[johkir]

With a stock price above $450, Google needs to start making a lot of money to keep the shareholders happy

New slogan for the Doubleclick division...

[heretic108]

..."Advertise no evil"

Hope so. But then again, I hope for world peace as well.

You mean

[KKlaus]

their baseball cards. Seriously, with the amount of restrictions on those shares, I don't understand why people started buying them in the first place. Never pay dividends, and are a second class set of shares that do not give any control over the company. What are you buying?

Well, besides a new home if you got in when they were at 85. Damn inane stock market.

Re:D'OH!

[packeteer]

I dont know anyone who doesn't block either BUT to be fair I generally only know smart educated people.

Re:D'OH!

[rm69990]

You post on Slashdot so you probably don't know too many people in the first place :-P

In reality though, I know a lot of people who didn't even have a pop-up blocker until it was finally added to Internet Explorer. Blocking ads on web pages? I don't know a single non-geek who has an adblocker installed. If they're not interested, they just ignore them.

Re:D'OH!

[rm69990]

something that is pretty much blocked to hell and back by anyone with clue.

You mean 1% of the population? Outside of my household, I haven't seen a single ad-blocker installed on anyone's computer. Most people just ignore the ads.

Doubleclick is still making hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue every year, so they clearly still have a viable business model, however evil you think it is.

Reg Reqd

[LordSnooty]

Google News offered me this link, a way to see the story without logging in.

Hosting

[|/|/|||]

And when are they going to pay me? I've been hosting doubleclick for years.

127.0.0.1 doubleclick.net

Re:Hosting

[lintux]

BTW, slightly off-topic, but does this actually work? Does it make *.doubleclick.net resolve to 127.0.0.1 too? I just make all my nameservers authoritative for doubleclick.net and domains like that, works perfectly and for all machines on the network. :-)

Re:Hosting

[|/|/|||]

Actually it doesn't work very well, and you really have to put the specific name in, like "ad.doubleclick.net".

Hostfiles are definitely not the best way to blacklist servers... I was just making a funny. ;)

Re:D'OH!

[lawrenlives]

Enough with the double negatives. I don't not know anybody who doesn't not block doubleclick neither,

except the other 90% of internet users that don't "block" anything.

Re:D'OH!

[Paradise Pete]

Now $300-$500 million might be more acceptable.

Based on your careful due diligence, no doubt. Or is that just some number you pulled out of your ass that "seems more reasonable" to you.
So what you think happened? Google called them up, got a quote of 3.1 Billion, and said "OK, if that's what you think it's worth."?

Re:So now...

[Pausanias]

Pretty soon yahoo and such will move from storing their ads on ads.yahoo/com/ad/ad.jpg to yahoo.com/$RANDOMSTRING.jpg. That way you won't be able to block them using filters unless you also want to block all images from that site. Which would be kind of annoying, especially if they stored their email interface graphics in the same format.

Hasn't happened yet though... six years ago when I started blocking ads I thought it would become inevitable.

Re:D'OH!

[kestasjk]

The question for me is what is 3.1 billion US dollars in Google dollars? Google's stock is way over-priced for the money they pull in, so does that mean that when they buy out seemingly expensive companies they're actually getting a good deal?

Anyone who understands the economy feel free to correct me.

Re:D'OH!

[TapeCutter]

They traded stock for YouTube, they paid cash for DoubleClick.

That's nothing

[MechaShiva]

Sigh...

I don't care

[rm999]

I haven't seen a doubleclick ad in years thanks to adblock

Oh, and just for this, I am going to set up adblock to block google ads too

Re:D'OH!

[EMH_Mark3]

It's not their assets that Google wants, it's their clients.

Re:D'OH!

[mikeisme77]

That's what I meant by assets. I mean those are the main assets of any advertising firm, or the way I see it anyway.

Re:D'OH!

[Phil246]

Then google just bought a competitor of adwords and benefitted anyway.
It was a win-win situation, buy it and you increase your market share - lose it, and you bump up the price to a level that microsoft and yahoo have to shell out far more then they planned to had google not entered bidding.

a vicious regress

[sidemouse]

If you can't be evil, buy 'em.

Re:D'OH!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a geek, nerd, whatever.
I don't block ads. If a site is an Ad farm, I won't go there, period.

If a site has one or two ads that I can tolerate, that's cool.

I do block popups though, if you can't present your content with the window that "I" allowed for you to create on my desktop, you can go ... yourself...

There are good blogs (term, ugh) out there who solely rely on ads to maintain their blog, think about what "you" are doing to them by blocking the ads.

I hate flashy annoying advertisements as much as the next guy, but the way I think of it is that it's up to the people behind the website to control how much crap they put on their page. If we (me and the web site owners) don't agree on the quantity, I close my browser window (deal is off)..

Re:D'OH!

[KrazyA1pha]

Keep in mind, though, that the cash was likely raised during their public stock offerings. Therefore Google's inflated stock price does play a role in their continued ability to acquire companies.

Re:So what?

[lintux]

As other people already said, you're very wrong. :-) I don't see the point of ad blockers. I used one back when I had dialup because it actually took a significant amount of time to download the ads. (The graphical ones, at least.)

But these days that time is not really noticeable anymore. And since I developed an "ad blindness" years ago already there's no need to block ads in software, I don't notice anymore if they're there or not. Works a lot better than getting upset when the adblocker mist an ad again. My blindness works for any ad. ;-)

Re:D'OH!

[TapeCutter]

A fool and their money are soon parted, and it remains to be seen if Google have been foolish with their money. Also keep in mind that cash is ...umm... cash, regardless of how one (legally) aquired it.

When it'll be too late

[dysonlu]

Years from now, we'll look back and wonder why the heck were we cheering for this monster advertising company who now has the ability to track us everywhere on the Net we might be so strong is its stranglehold on us.

Re:D'OH!

[iminplaya]

Yes, a lot of us geeks use that stuff (I don't, as I just ignore them)...

I do too, until an unresponsive ad page prevents the main page from loading, as what happens here. Because of that, I broke down and installed the ad blocker. If they want me to see their ads, they have stop attempting to steal my time. It's the only nonrenewable resource there is.

Regarding Google's nascent evilness

[chub_mackerel]

> > "they can argue you volunteered to have your emails scanned."

> Well, you agreed to the Terms of Use. Don't like 'em? Go to Yahoo.

This viewpoint only holds water if gmail is a self-contained universe, which it isn't.

For example: I don't use gmail. I didn't agree to let Google scan anything. And yet, when gmail users send me mail, then mail intended for my inbox is scanned by Google. If I send a gmail user mail (either directly or if someone forwards their other domain to a gmail account) then mail from my outbox is scanned by Google.

Tell me again how I consented to this...?

Addressing the larger concern, underneath the shiny, "non-evil" exterior of Google, is a targeted marketing company. Yes, an Internet-age, geek-friendly and trendy targeted marketing company with a less worrisome history than, say, Microsoft, but a targeted marketing company just the same, with all the privacy risks that entails. Make no mistake, Google is in the business of collecting and selling information about you for its own gain. And it will do so with your consent or without it.

Re:Regarding Google's nascent evilness

[Per Abrahamsen]

> Tell me again how I consented to this...?

You consented to let the intended receiver do whatever they want with your letter when you send it. Even before gmail they could quite legally put in on their home page, and still have Google (and every other search engine) scan it. Email privacy only covers the steps between the sender and receiver, not the end points.

Re:D'OH!

[KrazyA1pha]

"Also keep in mind that cash is ...umm... cash, regardless of how one (legally) aquired it." And I certainly wouldn't claim otherwise. My intention was simply to expand upon the information you presented so as to provide a more direct answer to kestasjk. Nothing personal.

Let me say a little somthing about Google

[iminplaya]

Unless you are looking for something who's name is part of a product or ad, you will get very few results. That link is a fairly common phrase I would think, and yet look how little info I get on it. And none of them showed the command I can't remember. If you need a product, go to Google. If you need information, ???

Re:Let me say a little somthing about Google

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

And yet if you take out the quotes then almost all of the results on the first page contain the answer to your question.

You should almost never use quotes when searching Google. Google already pays attention to your word order even without quotes - compare "girl crazy" to "crazy girl".

Re:Let me say a little somthing about Google

[iminplaya]

Heh, This time it worked. Usually I get so much junk when I don't use the quotes, they just became habit. Goes to show, it takes a real human to sort it out. You have proven that Slashdot makes a better search engine than Google. TNX

Re:Let me say a little somthing about Google

[iminplaya]

Yep, that was it. Thank you very much. I could've sworn it was the other. I'm still looking a less ad oriented search engine though.

Chair Fu

[BillGatesLoveChild]

Mental image of Steve Balmer communing with the ghost of Bruce Lee:

"You must become one with the chair"

More Dollars than Sense

[BillGatesLoveChild]

> The PDF FAQ they put there confirms the terms: $3.1 billion

But are they real dollars or Internet dollars?

First YouTube and now this? Someone should tell Google the Bubble is over. Meanwhile ask them if they want to buy your MySpace page: You'd probably get upwards of half-a-mil.

Re:D'OH!

[AuMatar]

On the other hand, every time I've mentioned ad blocking to a non-techie, their reaction is "You can do that???" followed by them begging me to set it up.

Adsense tracking cookies == false

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Could you show me yours?

Adsense adds a 30-day-expiring cookie to your machine if you click on an ad, and adds no cookie when you just visit sites with AdSense -- presumably to prevent DoubleClick-esque scandal.

https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?a nswer=6350

I see a change ?

[thrill12]

Just a few months ago, calling "google" "evil" would have made all mods go in "-1:flamebait"-mode.
Now, I see a lot of posts that are actually modded insightful. Does Google know that their esteemed fans on Slashdot are slowly turning ?
Would that make certain employees of Google scratch their head and dust off their resumees ?
Would that lower stocks somewhat ?

Anyone want to buy put-options for Google ? :)

Re:I see a change ?

[qzulla]

Did they ever know they had esteemed fans on /. ? Have they ever cared? Will they ever care?

Since when is /. the be all end all for anyone?

qz

Re:I see a change ?

[quizzicus]

./ is pretty important to the geek community. If everyone here stops having wet dreams about working for Google, it could slow their hiring.

Enough with the romanticism

[insignificant1]

The problem with the "core business" model is when people invest in your business (which covers a lot of businesses out there). Dividends from a company's profits are okay every year, but people want to see their stock triple in value.

And that doesn't happen if a business that dominates a market sticks to their "core business." Stock doesn't increase much if you go for the last 10% (or whatever) of the OS market share. Can you define their core business? Once you ID that, can you identify a clear path they can take to double the value of their company by pursuing that core business further? There are some obvious answers, and smart-ass answers. But I think they need to find new paths in order to grow further.

So Microsoft may look confused to you, but if you have billions of $$ in your war chest, you can afford to put many irons in many fires. If somebody else in any given realm gets successful, you at least have a beachhead from which to expand into the new, profitable territory. That's smart, although maybe less romantic than sticking tight to Windows until both Windows and MS die together.

Re:Enough with the romanticism

[jbash]

From a stockholder standpoint, it's better to own 2 different companies focused on 2 areas rather than 1 company dividing its efforts in 2 areas. If you're interested in learning more about this, I recommend the book "Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends On It" by Al Ries.

Google's focus should be on Internet search. Anything they do elsewhere dilutes their Internet search efforts. It might be that in a few years when Google has become another bloated conglomerate (like IBM was 20 years ago or Microsoft is today), the market will be open for a better search engine company to come along.

Re:Enough with the romanticism

[Duhavid]

I dont think it is romanticism. And stockholders can want what they
want, it is not nessesarily smart to give in to their demands.
Enron comes to mine. I can appreciate that some diversification
can be good, but it has to be smart.

Re:Enough with the romanticism

[vakuona]

No. Google uses search as a way to get eyes on its adverts. That is their business model. They are what every TV station wishes to be. A delivery system for ads.

Everything google does, is to keep you on google sites, so that you can see google ads. Now they want you to see their ads everywhere else.

Re:D'OH!

[funfail]

What about the technology? Not that doubleclick's non-existing ad technology is worth that much, but maybe their patents are...

Re:D'OH!

[mgabrys_sf]

I know that's the odd part of it all. The YouTube deal was brilliant insofar that within 24 hours, Google's stock increase ment a market cap of an additional 4.8 billion on a 1.5 billion dollar (stock) deal. So they made over 3 billion in valuation nearly instantly. This deal being cash is a bit more strange.

Perhaps if they succeed in getting their TV and Radio ad empire rolling they can threaten content providers trying to pull clips from YouTube with online and traditional advertising boycotts. That'd be cute actually...

Re:D'OH!

[jacksonj04]

Plus if Google merges the networks (Definately forseeable) then suddenly all those DoubleClick ads are served from Google's domains, which many people *don't* block because they're pretty unobtrusive and actually match what you're looking at.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather have Google knowing my browsing habits than DoubleClick. And I definitely would rather have Google know them than Microsoft.

Total consent = no consent.

[chub_mackerel]

You consented to let the intended receiver do whatever they want with your letter when you send it. Even before gmail they could quite legally put in on their home page, and still have Google (and every other search engine) scan it. Email privacy only covers the steps between the sender and receiver, not the end points.

Exactly. That's my point: that Google's (and the GP's) insistence on the magic of the "terms of use" and the user's ability to simply "Go to Yahoo" is an illusory fix. Business models that rely on getting consent from just one "endpoint" (as you put it) are extremely suspect. This is the type of thing that made Doubleclick so unpopular.

I worry that Google is holding out the gmail "terms of use" with one hand, trying to entice as many people as possible to use the service by saying that it shows how Google respects privacy and isn't "evil," while with the other hand it is really operating on an assumption much more like the one you have set forth: anything sent through email is largely fair game as long as someone at an "endpoint" somewhere signs on with Google.

Simply "going to Yahoo" wouldn't address the core concern here, any more than Doubleclick's "opt out" webpage protected the privacy interests of users that didn't even know Doubleclick was tracking their surfing activity. Companies that rely on such things for their business model are inherently suspect from a privacy standpoint. Google may not be evil, but my belief is that we should, perhaps, start with that assumption.

Re:So now...

[damncrackmonkey]

How is this a troll comment? Google clearly abandoned the 'do no evil' stance as soon as they started making a boatload of money.

Re:So what?

[the grace of R'hllor]

I care that sites I like don't charge me money. I like that sites that provide useful or entertaining content can continue to exist.

I don't block ads, because that would conflict with the above.

--
( I do block flash though, with FlashBlock )

Well do ya click, punk?

[FormOfActionBanana]

Do you click on the ads?

You know you're not doing your blogger any favors if you don't click through, and buy something.

Ah, moral relativism at it's finest

[dreamchaser]

Do you really believe what you wrote there? If so I am sad for you. Moral relativism is a fiction born of post modernist (crap)thought.

Frankly the US government is just as evil as Google for even dealing with China at all.

Re:Ah, moral relativism at it's finest

[binkzz]

Google is a company; they push services, not ideologies. To say the US is as evil as Google (if Google were evil) for dealing with China at all, is suggesting that US companies are morally superior to Chinese companies, a presumptuous statement that would be hard to prove.

Please do not condescend me by saying you feel sad for me for stating my beliefs; it is childish and pretentious, and serves no other purpose than to be spiteful.

What of Google Desktop?

[GumbyDamnIt]

Wasn't Google Desktop supposed to be good for blocking poppups and, in essence, ads and other crap? So now is it going to inject DoubleClick ads and crap at users, not to mention steal marketing information? More than likely they'll set it up to circumvent firewall and HOSTS blocking. I guess I'll continue to say 'no' whenever an install subtly asks, "do you [i]not[/i] want to install Google Desktop". But that's another rant.

Re:D'OH!

[Bri3D]

However, at the school district in my area, DoubleClick is automatically blocked at the edge router level. I'm not at all sure if this is legal, but it's definately been done.

I'm sure at least a few small/medium business network admins also automatically block DoubleClick due to their reputation for terribly invasive and questionably legal data-mining.

So quite a few people probably have DoubleClick blocked without even really knowing or noticing it.

Re:So now...

[TheSpoom]

I thought of this a while ago. They'd have to create a server-side script for clients as otherwise we'll just continue to block the JavaScript that decides what ad to view instead.

Or this idea: Create a server-side script, perhaps in PHP or something similar, that will prevent continued pageload until the advertising content, traditionally placed at the top of the page anyway, is loaded and displayed. Maybe combine them.

Now, both ideas are subject to the ads themselves actually being displayed on the page, and what I think would happen would be that Adblock et al would simply look for images coming from Yahoo / Google outside of their own domains and block them that way. They could even have more complicated whitelisting for Google searchboxes and such to differentiate them. ...I think about this stuff way too much. -_-

Re:D'OH!

[DohnJoe]

They traded stock for YouTube, they paid cash for DoubleClick. DoubleClick also asked for the money to be transferred in black satchel bags, using unmarked, 100 dollar bills.

Re:D'OH!

[TapeCutter]

"This deal being cash is a bit more strange"

We are talking about DoubleClick, see the comment below redarding unmarked $100 bills.

Re:D'OH!

[lilfields]

How is Google's stock over valued? They have a forward P/E of 25.31, Yahoo has a forward P/E of 43.03...So Yahoo is actually more expensive, though Google is growing at a faster rate...the only reason Google's stock seems so "expensive" is because they've never split their stock. The huge price of at one time $500+ a share scares off investors that don't know how to measure true valuation. If anything Google is cheap with it's monster growth.

Re:D'OH!

[Dr. Spork]

That's pretty interesting. The funny thing about doubleclick is just how easy it is to block their content. You don't even need adblock, I think Firefox's native "do not show images from" feature gets everything.

On the opposite extreme are Google ads, which are basically unblockable because they are text. Or at least let me put it this way: you'd need a pretty good and constantly updating AI in order to block text ads, and except as an academic exercise, coding it and maintaining it is not worth anyone's time.

So I'm actually a little mad that Google bought Doubleclick because I was so happy with Doubleclick being blissfully out of sight and out of mind. I worry it won't stay that way for long.

Ad blocking will turn Bayesian, like spam blocking

[Dr. Spork]

The only reason why you haven't seen Yahoo start jumping through these sorts of hoops is because it would be a move in a pointless arms race. Spammers have thought of these techniques and more, and they are still losing the war against the user with a good spam blocker (like the one in Gmail). If ad companies raise the ante like you suggest, there are obvious responses, like looking at the image size and maybe headers for telltale signs of slime. Image placement on a page might also give something away. Even if there is a random string in the URL, a simple Bayesian filter would recognize that, provided that Yahoo's legit images don't have this random string in the URL.

I don't think anyone wants to take this step forward in the arms race. Once ad filters get Bayesian, it's only a matter of time that techniques developed for spam filtering will be used to find and refuse to display text ads. Then Capitalism collapses.

Evil

[PingXao]

The slow slide of Google is clearly underway. This move is evil. Even if Google did nothing more than shut down all the dc servers permanently, this would still be evil. Why? Because they have enriched the people who profited from the DC hellspawn. Google just moved from my "Strongly Approve" list of companies to my "Hold" list.

Re:Evil

[usa1mac]

Let's get Slashdot to change the logo it has for Google. They have Bill in a Borg get up for Microsoft. How about something like this: http://s25.photobucket.com/albums/c72/usa1mac/?act ion=view&current=Evil_Google.jpg

The logic *doesn't extend* to monopolies

[insignificant1]

Well, I would be interested in the source you site, and I would tend to agree... but for a smaller business than the ones we're talking, not for businesses with monopolies or a very large % of the market share of their core business.

If you look at Google as a search engine business (which another poster appropriately points out is probably not quite accurate), they already have a good-sized portion of the market (64% and growing, according to one source).

If Google goes for the last 36% of the search market (because they are a good business by your standards and only focus on their core), then at best Google can only increase its value by just over 56%. That means that, with a lot of assumptions thrown in, if it takes 10 years for Google to monopolize search, you get 4.6% increase in stock value each year. That isn't going to even beat inflation. (Of course if they monopolize, then not only can they drive prices up, but they can also get some government regulators interested.)

Now you own stock for a second company, MS, whose core business is operating systems. MS has 94% of the market share, based upon Wikipedia. But close enough. Say they just focus on their core business, and it takes them 5 years to totally monopolize their market. That yields about 1.2% per year. Wow.

So now you have two stocks, both for companies who focus only on their core business. But you'd have a better investment with a money market or CD at your local bank. Do you see my point now about these big businesses dabbling in other things (never too far from the core, but definitely not in the core) to see if something else pans out?

The should have let Microsoft buy it

[Dr. Spork]

I think this was a dumb move. Google were already the online advertising giants, and if they wanted to go into banner advertising, they could have done it much better than Doubleclick (targetting, workarounds to blocking, etc.). So what better way to bitchslap Microsoft than to let them buy doubleclick for 3B and introduce a superior competitor that takes away all of Doubleclick's customers? Google could definitely do that for far less than $3B, and another side benefit would be watching MS blow $3B on a dying company!

Re:D'OH!

[tutwabee]

I dont know anyone who doesn't block either BUT to be fair I generally only know smart educated people. Speak for yourself there. All the educated people I know are stupid educated people. :P

Re:D'OH!

[StikyPad]

I don't know anyone who doesn't block doubleclick.

Me neither : (