Google this morning closed on its $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick just hours after EU antitrust regulators cleared the deal without imposing any conditions.
The company intends to use DoubleClick’s display ad platform to “bring to market advances in technology and infrastructure that will dramatically improve the effectiveness, measurability and performance of digital media for publishers, advertisers and agencies, while improving the relevance of advertising for users,” CEO Eric Schmidt said in a statement.
In approving the deal, the European regulators wrote that the merger posed no antitrust threat. “The Commission’s in-depth market investigation found that Google and DoubleClick were not exerting major competitive constraints on each other’s activities and could, therefore, not be considered as competitors at the moment,” wrote the European Commission.
The Federal Trade Commission cleared the deal late last year in a 4-1 vote.
The merger is expected to give Google an immediate boost in the growing display ad market — which will reach $28.6 billion by 2010, according to J.P. Morgan
The deal also appears to give Google access to a wealth of information about users’ Web-surfing history that could be used to target ads to them. In a report issued this morning, J.P. Morgan predicts that Google will leverage DoubleClick’s data to command increased rates. “Google will now have behavioral data from search, email, video, and web usage on network sites,” J.P. Morgan stated. “We believe this will allow the company to provide much better ad-targeting, leading to increased CPMs on DoubleClick sites.”
But Google won’t necessarily be able to use this trove of behavioral data. Privacy advocates are pressing hard to prevent companies from compiling detailed profiles of users without their permission. And the European authorities seem to be listening. Last month, European regulators said they consider IP addresses personal data, subject to privacy laws — which means that Google might not get as much out of this deal as it hopes to.
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cem on March 18, 2008
I think its a great investment by Google.
Virgil on March 18, 2008
google is no1 forever!
Sarina on March 18, 2008
Wow, Google is just growing by the minute, just like Bill Gates from Microsoft! I wonder if Microsoft (owner of Yahoo) will expand to be larger then Google..??
We will just have to wait and see
Thanks
Sarina Sky
Domain Name Rental Blog on March 18, 2008
Google is locking itself in as not only a search engine but an ad provider with this. Good luck, Yahoo and Microsoft trying to catch up.
AMIT BHADURI on March 18, 2008
Google perhaps has decided to take Microsoft head on. I am not sure whether it is good or bad for commoners like me. I wish the competition remains open to all.
Dedi Chan on March 19, 2008
I wonder how much money DoubleClick made?
I mean 3.1 Billion Dollars!
Matic Mezek on March 22, 2008
Wow Google has a lot of money. Thats a nice buy
Im for Google and not for Microsoft.
Have to install linux, ahhahaaha
guitargod1 on April 10, 2008
Awesome! Ahahaha! Stop it, you?re killing me! Anyway, I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought this is great.