Google buys DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion 351
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.'"
Confrimation on the Google Blog (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I hope it was for the client list (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Gookle +1 MS-1 (Score:3, Informative)
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).
Re:I hope it was for the client list (Score:5, Informative)
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?
Official Google Blog Announcement (Score:2, Informative)
Re:D'OH! (Score:5, Informative)
Adsense tracking cookies == false (Score:1, Informative)
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?
Re:It's f*****d company all over again. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:whoa (Score:3, Informative)
It's great, but it's not content.
Re:whoa (Score:3, Informative)
google
+ kvjfro
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skynet