Microsoft, Google, and Others Dueling Over DoubleClick? - Google Gives it Consideration
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Speculation that Google was considering a DoubleClick purchase emerged shortly after the media took notice of Microsoft’s interest. It is possible that Google may want to purchase DoubleClick simply to prevent Microsoft from doing so. There has to be a lot more behind it than that, though. Google just paid $1.65 billion for YouTube, and DoubleClick’s purchase price is said to be $2 billion – and may go quite a bit higher now that the search engine giant is in the game. Google might be filthy rich, but is DoubleClick really worth that much to the company?
Google is rumored to be working on an ad serving technology similar to DoubleClick’s. Currently, when an advertiser wants to run an ad with Google, he or she must run the creative through Google as well. But a lot of advertisers who are used to doing graphical CPM ads run them through third party ad servers. This is the market that DoubleClick serves. If Google is indeed working on an ad server that could work on sites for Web publishers even when the search giant hasn’t sold the ads, it’s clearly aiming to compete with DoubleClick. In that case, does it make more sense to simply purchase DoubleClick instead?
Google might indeed have its eyes on DoubleClick technology, but it may not be the same technology Microsoft covets. You see, one major area where Microsoft has Google beat is in intellectual property, specifically in patents. This isn’t surprising; Microsoft has been around a lot longer (and for those who count these things, IBM has both Microsoft and Google beat on sheer number of patents). But DoubleClick owns some key patents that could make Google salivate, given the search engine’s current areas of interest.
Seeking Alpha writer Cory Sorice lists five DoubleClick patents that could help Google. These include a 1997 patent that would let Google incorporate advertiser feedback into its system; a different patent that would allow for some very detailed analysis of web site activity; a patent for “delivering, targeting, and measuring online ads;” a patent that could have uses in interactive TV and perhaps even be applied to YouTube’s future; and one other. This is to say nothing of the patents DoubleClick might hold that Sorice didn't list. If Google has the patent paper behind it, it could more easily forge ahead in these areas. While it seems unlikely that it would get suit-happy to protect those patents, just having them would give it some serious muscle.
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