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Google Plans To Sell Part of DoubleClick

Posted by Soulskill on from the look-we're-not-evil-see dept.

mudimba writes "Google has announced that they will be selling the search engine marketing branch of recently acquired company DoubleClick. Google's reason for the sale is that they do not want to appear to be giving preferential treatment in search rankings to DoubleClick customers. Tom Phillips, director of Google's integration with DoubleClick, said, 'Maintaining objectivity in both search and advertising is paramount to Google's mission and core to the trust we ask from our users.' Google was under scrutiny from the European Union and the FTC over their purchase of DoubleClick, but both eventually approved the deal."

61 comments

  1. effective marketing by dayjn · · Score: 1

    This makes me trust Google even more as my search engine of choice. Is their psychology working?

    1. Re:effective marketing by adpsimpson · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is similar to the recent two-finger salute given to the BPI (British equiv. of RIAA) over their proposed "Three strikes and you're out" strategy.

      By putting the customer's desire/need first, they gain the customer's trust.

      This used to be called good business.

      --
      Is crushing a suspect's child's testicles illegal?
      John Yoo: "No, [if] the President thinks he needs to do that."
    2. Re:effective marketing by eebra82 · · Score: 1

      I know Google wishes to maintain this don't be evil motto, but be realistic here.. A multi billion dollar company like Google certainly didn't plunge out $3.1 billion just to find out only a year later that it's immoral. Dig a little deeper and I'm sure you will find out that money is the issue, not morality.

      --
      Full Tilt
    3. Re:effective marketing by encoderer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Of COURSE it's about money, but that doesn't mean it's not ALSO about morality!

      The bean counters create a probability curve to estimate how much revenue they could lose if the perception were to become that GOOG is manipulating their results and giving preference to the customers paying DC for search engine marketing.

      That is, how much would they lose by looking amoral.

      Subtract that from the projected revenue from that DC unit.

      If the number is negative on most points in the probability curve, then it's a no-brainer.

      But even if it's in the "barely positive" territory, say, less than $10MM a year, I could still see an enlightened manager, thinking of that motto, making the decision to forgo that marginal revenue to maintain brand cachet that is difficult to value but that could be negatively impacted by the perception of conflict of interest.

      So, certainly, it's an issue about money. But that doesn't preclude accounting for the morality of it.

    4. Re:effective marketing by Nullav · · Score: 1

      Actually, it could very well be that this is evil. When none of the users are directly paying you and thus have no reason to stubbornly cling to you, image really does matter.

      --
      I just read Slashdot for the articles.
    5. Re:effective marketing by MrNaz · · Score: 1

      I think the previous poster's point was that if being amoral was profitable, Google would be amoral in a heartbeat.

      --
      I hate printers.
    6. Re:effective marketing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/quotes

      Narrator: A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

  2. Haha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    They should sell it to M$.

    See what I did? I substituted S with $. That's wit.

  3. In related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Google are also planning to cut hundreds of jobs at doubeclick

    1. Re:In related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They already did. Layoffs were announced on Wednesday.

    2. Re:In related news by kestasjk · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They were buying for market share less than the employees, there were obviously going to be redundancies, there always are in these mergers.

      --
      // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
    3. Re:In related news by ajs · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, that's not shocking. They've bought a company whose core technology and services are not only very like their own, but in general are vastly inferior. For the most part, they bought the customer base, not the people.

    4. Re:In related news by Machtyn · · Score: 1

      What happened to:
      "Our employees are our most important asset."

      hehe

    5. Re:In related news by FreeRadicalX · · Score: 1

      Old news. The cut about 20 percent of employees two days ago. My girlfriend works there as said it was like a funeral.

  4. What does DoubleClick do? by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    DoubleClick has always been one of those weird companies that seems like they are everywhere, putting cookies in my cache, and tracking my online habits. But I've never been clear what their actual business model was.

    I see now what Performix, the subcompany that Google is trying to sell, does. It sounds like SEO (search engine optimization => A process aimed at improving the search result ranking of a site by augmenting the site content and other factors to be more search engine friendly) for online search engine advertising. Oscar Mayer would hire Performix to get an idea of what keywords are most likely to be used by people interested in hotdogs or lunchables.

    But I still don't get DoubleClick.

    1. Re:What does DoubleClick do? by Jellybob · · Score: 4, Informative

      Their main business model is selling ad space on people's websites - find advertisers can be incredibly hard work, so a lot of sites outsource that to Double Click.

      They then sell the advertising space, and provide web apps that allow the advertisers to see how effective the campaign is, and site owners to see who's buying their ad space, and how much they're paying.

      That's also the reason there was so much scrutiny of this deal, since the largest banner advertising company has now been bought by the largest text advertising company.

    2. Re:What does DoubleClick do? by Jellybob · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And just as an extra note - the banner ad that appeared when I posted that comment is hosted on ad.doubleclick.net.

      Now... when is Adblock going to get updated for Firefox 3 Beta 3!

    3. Re:What does DoubleClick do? by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

      Uh, they do online marketing campaigns, including selling and producing banner ads, video ads, and now widget ads(!)

      Think of them as the equivalent of the big media advertising companies in New York, but for online.

      --
      My blog
    4. Re:What does DoubleClick do? by Hognoxious · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      the banner ad that appeared when I posted that comment
      The one with the Polack slappers on it?

      I ordered a 5'10", 135 pound, 23 year old blonde and a I got a bobcat. Would not buy again.
      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    5. Re:What does DoubleClick do? by theaceoffire · · Score: 1

      I believe it has been updated for Firefox 3 Beta 3 and Firefox 3 Beta 4. As a user of 3 Beta 5 however, not sure if it is yet.

      --
      I steal signatures. This one used to be yours.
    6. Re:What does DoubleClick do? by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 3, Informative

      Since I worked for a competition, I feel compelled to mention: DoubleClick may, or may not, be the largest banner advertising company on the web. They're definitely in the top three, but this isn't an industry that actually has metrics to determine who the "leader" is, like most industries do, and DoubleClick (and the other two big players in this field) don't share enough data to really determine this.

      DoubleClick is certainly the most visible to the public, though.

      --
      Comment of the year
    7. Re:What does DoubleClick do? by mgblst · · Score: 1

      They're definitely in the top three, but this isn't an industry that actually has metrics to determine who the "leader" is, like most industries do, and DoubleClick (and the other two big players in this field) don't share enough data to really determine this. In fact, this is like most industries. Most companies don't like sharing data about their practises, this is valuable information to their competition.

    8. Re:What does DoubleClick do? by spikedvodka · · Score: 1

      it appears to somewhat work (as a user of beta 5 myself)

      a lot of ads don't show, and are blocked, but a bunch are making it through, even though they should be blocked.

      there are still a couple of other bugs

      --
      I will not give in to the terrorists. I will not become fearful.
    9. Re:What does DoubleClick do? by MilesAttacca · · Score: 1

      Sometimes it seems like an easy way for Google to get around its promise of only making us endure unobtrusive text ads. I've liked them less and less since they started doing bigger ads that call more attention to themselves. On the other hand, is there any good alternative to Google for selling text ad space?

      --
      98% of America's teens drink alcohol, smoke, and have sex. Put this in your sig if you like bagels.
    10. Re:What does DoubleClick do? by beckerist · · Score: 1

      You can get Adblock to run using this:

      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6543

      once installed, go to "addons" and there will be a new button "force compatibility."

    11. Re:What does DoubleClick do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not only that, but, back on the times of the IT bubble burst in 2000, Doubleclick bought the behavioral ad technology that was behind 24/7 media (today's 24/7 Realmedia). The behavioral ad algorithm being used by 24/7 at that time was the reason of a huge controversy on regards of privacy, but it was the most advanced behavioral ad concept: it is capable to post a banner with the user's first name on a web page that is not even related to the product the banner is selling. Basically, if your data-mined behavior shows that you have a probability of buying a car in the next week, for example, and you are surfing to Victoria Secret's web page, this behavioral engine can show a Ford banner ad with your first name and the dealer's phone for the one closest to your home zip code, on the Victoria Secret's page.
      I know that because I was part of the original team that developed this data mining algorithm, back then, when we still were Sabela, before we got bought by 24/7 in 1999.
      So, by acquiring Doubleclick, Google buys this user behavior data-mining technology as well, which is way more advanced than anything Google achieved with all their research, until now.

    12. Re:What does DoubleClick do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, by acquiring Doubleclick, Google buys this user behavior data-mining technology as well, which is way more advanced than anything Google achieved with all their research, until now. Hubris alert... It's also possible that Google can do it already, and just choose not to use something like that because people are already worried about how much data about them google collects?

      If I were searching through a website, and saw ads with my name on them unrelated to the website at hand (well, targeted ads), I would be blocking that domain as soon as I could.

      So, its entirely possible that Google has or could acheive it through 'all their research' from all their PhDs and 4.0 GPA MIT students... it doesn't seem like that hard of an algorithm if you have the data, certainly not hard enough that an army of computer scientists can't come up with a solution.
    13. Re:What does DoubleClick do? by Jellybob · · Score: 1

      Excellent, thanks for the tip :)

    14. Re:What does DoubleClick do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is certainly what they're best known for, but I'm not sure they actually still do that. Back in the .com boom, they sold ads directly, but now they just mainly just run an ad server for other ad networks. If you have a website and want to sell ads directly, your advertisers want to know that you're not cheating and telling them you served more ads than you did. To solve that, you get doubleclick to serve your ads for you. They charge you a couple cents per thousand ads, which is likely be much smaller than what you're getting paid, and it means your advertisers trust you. As far as I know though, they don't actually have advertisers themselves.

    15. Re:What does DoubleClick do? by rubah · · Score: 1

      What's the difference between 'force compatibility' and disabling check.compatibility in about:config? Because the latter tended to make ff3b4 crash when closing the program. :]

  5. they do not want to appear... by Daniel+Ellard · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... to give preferential treatment.

    Given that the entire world is already divided between people who believe the conspiracy theories circulating about Google and people who love Google unconditionally, I doubt they really care too much about appearances -- people are going to think whatever they want.

    More likely this is to keep them out of court.

    --
    Disclaimer: I work for a company, but I don't speak for them.
    1. Re:they do not want to appear... by mgblst · · Score: 1

      Given that the entire world is already divided
      between people who believe the conspiracy theories circulating
      about Google and people who love Google
      unconditionally,

      I don't think that most of the world cares about Google all that much. Now you would be right about the people here at slashdot.

    2. Re:they do not want to appear... by pembo13 · · Score: 1

      Frankly I resent that. I am part of that neither of the aforementioned groups.

      --
      "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
    3. Re:they do not want to appear... by ajs · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Given that the entire world is already divided between people who believe the conspiracy theories circulating about Google and people who love Google unconditionally, I wonder how I and just about everyone I know ended up not being in either of those camps....

      Google has three things going for them:

      1. They have technically sophisticated folks (not just someone who has worked with computers for a few years) in executive management.

      2. They made a point of scooping up the best and the brightest at a time that they could afford it.

      3. They have the phrase "do no evil," and a clear, financial explanation of what that means in their S1.

      Most people think that point number 3 is just PR. It's not. What it is is lawsuit insurance. Every other public company in the world is required to do everything that they can possibly describe as "not quite illegal" to enhance shareholder value. Google's shareholders, on the other hand were warned up-front and in SEC filings that they can't expect that, and that shields Google from reprisals when they don't do something because they don't like where it's going (e.g. when the DoJ asks them to turn over search records and say, "but Yahoo! and MSN were only too happy to comply!")

      It doesn't mean that they're not evil. It just means that, unlike everyone else, they're not required to be.

      I don't love Google. However, I don't see any reason to fear-monger over them, which is what I see on Slashdot all too often.

    4. Re:they do not want to appear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your point about lawsuits is really not true. The phrase would have absolutely no bearing on lawsuits against Google for not trying to maximize shareholder value. They would still be responsible to do that no matter what kind of slogan they have.

  6. Piffle by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What the hell is the difference if Google gives preferential treatment to DoubleClick customers or simply customers who pay more? Either way, the benefit to them is the same -- more money in their pockets. And neither course of actions seems to make them any more trustworthy, IMHO. The only thing that makes Google (as a search engine) trustworthy to any extent, in my mind, is that they don't try to disguise paid advertisements as search engine results.

    --
    My blog
    1. Re:Piffle by mapkinase · · Score: 1

      "The only thing that makes Google (as a search engine) trustworthy to any extent, in my mind, is that they don't try to disguise paid advertisements as search engine results."

      Do they?

      --
      I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
    2. Re:Piffle by maxume · · Score: 1

      I think they realize that a great deal of their income comes from providing good search results and that SEO(especially the 'consulting' part of it) is largely based on actively making search results worse.

      So it doesn't even have to be about keeping the search results clean, but about not executing conflicting strategies(or at least, having the sense not to sacrifice good revenue chasing after bad revenue, in the sense that SEO isn't a market if search goes away).

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  7. Which part are they selling? by cliffiecee · · Score: 4, Funny

    I hope it's the evil part.

    1. Re:Which part are they selling? by Errtu76 · · Score: 1

      In that case i know of a certain company in Redmond that might be interested.

    2. Re:Which part are they selling? by CarAnalogy · · Score: 4, Funny

      They'll sell one of the clicks, after which it will be renamed SingleClick. They might get Amazon on the phone for that, though...

  8. How does that even work? by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you now have search and banner campaigns through DoubleClick, suddenly your search campaigns are shuttled off to some other company? You can't feed both campaigns off the same budget anymore or access all your performance indicators in one place?

    Sounds like Google is crippling DoubleClick's search business to provide a dubious benefit.

    --
    Comment of the year
  9. Single Click by jlebrech · · Score: 1

    The other half will have a line under it, and they will paint it all blue.

  10. Danny Sullivan on Google's SEO Dilemma by 1sockchuck · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Prominent search expert Danny Sullivan outlined the reasons Google should divest Performics in a post last month at Search Engine Land. He also notes that Microsoft has a similar conflict since it owns Aquantive, whose Avenue A/Razorfish unit offers search engine optimization.

  11. Finally! I'm through the.... by Eth1csGrad1ent · · Score: 5, Funny

    Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...
    Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...
    Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...

    and can now preview this comment...

    Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...
    Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...
    Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...

    and post it.

    Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...
    Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...
    Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...

    Nope.

    Apparently I need to put more text here to beat the postercompression filter. So here goes: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Phasellus non erat eu dui dignissim dictum. Integer iaculis nulla at nisl. Proin ut enim non ipsum varius laoreet. Integer feugiat, ante fringilla blandit convallis, leo sapien egestas velit, non condimentum nulla sem vitae risus. Mauris aliquam auctor quam. Sed ac enim. Donec mattis dui id ligula. Integer vel sem eget ante cursus tristique. Nullam vel orci vitae sem interdum placerat. In eget lectus. Donec blandit. Quisque lacus urna, malesuada vel, mollis sit amet, rutrum nec, est. Proin blandit ornare nibh. Duis et felis.

    Done :)

  12. Microsoft's Pride by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Doubleclick up for sale, hmmm, who else wanted to buy Doubleclick? Oh yes, Microsoft and Yahoo, Google's two largest competitors. Think they will buy it from Google? Heck no! That would require swallowing pride and admitting that they are secondary to Google in power.

    Suckers.

  13. Google's true reason for the sale... by TheHorse13 · · Score: 1

    will never be reported in the media. I'd throw my bet into the, "this doubleclick thing isn't as profitable as we had hoped. Let's dump it while we still have a chance to get a few bucks for it. Oh and let's also trim some jobs so that we see an immediate impact on the bottom line..." ring.

  14. Bottom of Page Slashdot Quote by HungSoLow · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    "What we Are is God's gift to us. What we Become is our gift to God."

    What ever happend to the separation of Church and Geek?

  15. Re:Lynx, my love. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're free to fuck off to some other news site.

  16. Re:Finally! I'm through the.... by chainLynx · · Score: 1

    Just alias all the doubleclick servers to 127.0.0.1 in your /etc/hosts to solve this problem http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=110440

  17. Re:Finally! I'm through the.... by totierne · · Score: 1

    Hey I like the ads, rather fetching Russian women at the moment.

    --
    Be Free: Free Software Tuition
  18. Can't they just euthanize the employees by MadMidnightBomber · · Score: 1

    and burn all the documentation? Sure, they might have to write off a couple of hundred mil, but I figure Larry and Sergei can afford that kind of money.

    --
    "It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
  19. When does Goog sell Youtube... by heroine · · Score: 1

    and buy Vimeo?

  20. Re:Finally! I'm through the.... by Joelfabulous · · Score: 1

    Seeing as I have studied Latin (first year uni only) I'm curious to know what you have written.

    Sadly, I too am waiting for ad.doubleclick.net to load on the free Latin translation site since I am too lazy to check myself. =)

    (Just kidding... Firefox 1.5.1.3 or whatever it is now running noscript, adblock plus, filtersetg, customizegoogle, etc.)

    Addendum: I write that then I get a "Loading" dela^H^H^H^H "feature!" from the new discussion system. Irony ftw?

    Keep up the good work. =)

    --
    Sometimes I wonder if I think too much.
  21. Re:Finally! I'm through the.... by Nathanbp · · Score: 1

    See http://www.lipsum.com/ for information on the Lorem ipsum text (there's a translation there too). In summary, it's a set of text traditionally used by publishers to fill space.