Microsoft to Buy DoubleClick?

roscoetoon writes to tell us Bloomberg is reporting that Microsoft is in talks to buy DoubleClick. Seen as a move to compete against the Google advertising engine Double Click owners Hellman & Friedman are seeking a $2 billion payday. "The purchase would give Microsoft tools to battle Google Inc. for ads that appear on Web sites. DoubleClick works with advertisers to create online campaigns, such as streaming video clips to promote New Line Cinema's movie "The Number 23." The New York-based company's Dart technology monitors the performance of Internet ads for marketing companies."

Just one more reason for people to hate MS

[517714]

DoubleClick is not accessible from any computer I use. I don't believe a change in its ownership will change that

MS should know when to give up

[EmbeddedJanitor]

MS have a very poor history of taking away market share from others, especially on a playing field that is stacked against them.

Their roaring success: DOS + Windows was not achieved by taking away market share from others (ie. Apple etc), but by going into a new market. They used illegal means to get Office in place.

Whenever they have tried to eat into an existing market where they cannot leverage Windows they have failed miserably: Zune, MSN, .... Their aquisitions are much the same: hotmail...

Doubleclick is likely to end up on the junk pile too.

follows the MS motto

[Anonymous Coward]

Do be evil.

Feel free, MS...

[mdm-adph]

...I've had doubleclick's servers blocked in my HOSTS file for ages now.

Nonsense

[mccalli]

Windows wasn't a foregone conclusion - in the early days there was GEM, and during Windows' development there was also OS/2. Office didn't just materialise either, there was Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect/WordStar/DBase III. Then there's Netscape - they killed Netscape-the-company completely by, despite the many myths, simply being better than Netscape v4.

Tried to eat into an existing market with Hotmail? Hotmail was the market - it's all the others that are the followers here. Some did it better of course, but MS were not trying to take away market share from others. They were trying to prevent losing users to web-based interfaces which they did not own.

Zune and MSN...yep, agreed. Doubleclick - different class. It's not an end-user product, and due to this I rather suspect they'll do well with it. MS do cater to developers and API users pretty well, and that's what you're talking about when it comes to an advert site. In the end it can only be good to have two vast firms competing for your site's space and offering you cash accordingly.

Well, good for the site creator of course. For me, I mutter a few words of gratitude for AdBlock and Pithhelmet and then carry on regardless.

Cheers,
Ian

Let's see...

[Wireless Joe]

AdBlock Plus filter set to *doubleclick.net*? Yes. Purchase away Microsoft.

Privacy Issues?

[transporter_ii]

Yeah, a bloated and hated company that has a huge amount of computers going to its site every day buys a company that has a huge amount of cookies on everybody's computers. Match the two together somehow and you probably have more of an issue than searching on google and using gmail at the same time...at least this would probably be able to tie a much lager portion of users to their surfing habits.

What could only add to the mix would be Microsoft + Double Click + Homeland Security (and maybe throw AT&T into the mix as well)

Transporter_ii

Internet Bubble Mk.II

[rve]

Yet again, insane amounts of money are spent on things with very little substance but a high internet buzzword count.

Like last time, eventually investors will panic when they contemplate the very expensive pile of hot air they will have accumulated, and yet again the bubble will burst dramatically, sucking up billions of dollars that could have been invested in companies that actually make something and / or actually provide a service, and causing another European and North American recession.

Meanwhile, I'm investing all of my money in tulip bulbs.

Re:Valuations

[grub]

Youtube = 1.6 billion DoubleClick = 2? Your thoughts?

My copies of AdBlock don't block YouTube.

Re:Nonsense

[rucs_hack]

You know what, as unfashionable as it is, you're right about netscape 4 and IE.

At the time I had no idea what Microsoft were doing. I just got so utterly sick of trying to use Netscape that I started casting about for any alternative. IE wasn't great, but it was faster. In 33/56k modem days the speed of IE was an awesome advantage, even if it didn't have the features. I didn't care about what was happening to Netscape, but at that point I had only just got back into computing after an eight year break.

I didn't change from IE until the first version of Firefox came out, or Firebird as it was then. Since that time I have never willingly used IE. If any site requires it I just stop using that site.

This could be dangerous, actually

[tacokill]

Imagine what you could do - if you were not limited - with all of the data MSFT could gather and combine it with the marketing/advertising data of DoubleClick.

Think operating systems, browser, and office "features" here, people. The features gather more and more information as time goes on. Its already been happening over the last 5-10 years so the trend is certainly in that direction. I mean, thus far, Mr. Softie has been pretty easy (all things considered) on how much data he sends back home but I am sure things could be configured differently to gather a whole new set of information. A much larger, complex, and more intrusive set of information. And then they can market based on that data (DoubleClick). Like Google, cept Google doesn't have an operating system sitting on every damn computer in the world.

It could get very very ugly. I can envision several nasty things that I would do and thats only thinking about it 5 min.

Access to customers (data) + Marketing/advertising = big revenues for the seller of marketing and advertising products. That's what we are talking about here -- selling ads.

Re:Valuations

[yo_tuco]

"Your thoughts?"

Is this the same doublclick that gets special treatment in my /etc/hosts file?

$ sudo cat /etc/hosts |grep doubleclick
127.0.0.1 www.doubleclick.com
127.0.0.1 www2.doubleclick.com
127.0.0.1 ww3.doubleclick.com
127.0.0.1 www.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 doubleclick.com
127.0.0.1 ad.us..doubleclick.com ...

Re:Seriously, who doesn't filter DoubleClick?

[gertam]

Have you thought about the fact that Microsoft doesn't just get access to the doubleclick domains, but doubleclick gets access to the microsoft domains. You gonna block all them, go ahead. Not many companies will.

Wrong Half, M$

[AnonymousRobin]

Nobody goes to Google Whatever for the ads. They go there because they want to use a useful, well-made service. You don't compete by making better ads. Nobody likes ads. Google gets away with it because their ads are unobtrusive, and nobody minds seeing (occasionally useful) ads on the side of their Gmail inbox. People are going to mind seeing giant streaming videos playing at full volume when they're trying to read an e-mail from their niece. If Microsoft wants to compete, they're going to have to spend a little less time trying to think about how to steal money from you by annoying you enough, and a bit more on making applications good enough that people won't mind ads.

Re:Valuations

[cheater512]

Nor do my squid filter rules.

I wonder if Doubleclick would get the prize for being the most blocked internet domain.

Re:Internet Bubble Mk.II

[HomelessInLaJolla]

eventually investors will panic when they contemplate the very expensive pile of hot air they will have accumulated, and yet again the bubble will burst dramatically

In the mean time the people who orchestrated the event, having named themselves the execs and CEOs of both the investment firms and the hot air companies, will have portioned out to themselves a majority of the billions of dollars. The money doesn't just get sucked up--it gets laundered and funnelled back to the top of the pyramid.

Re:Just one more reason for people to hate MS

[Rick17JJ]

I use Mike's add blocking hosts files [everythingisnt.com] on my three computers that blocks advertising related communication with DoubleClick and other similar advertising related URL's. The modified hosts file takes the attempts to communicate with them and diverts them to the 127.0.0.1 loop back address on my computers. I use one of their modified hosts files on all three of my computers. One of the computers is a Windows 2000, another runs Windows XP and the third runs Ubuntu Linux. The modified hosts file trick works on all three computers and I update the modified hosts file regularly.

Before doing that, I used to go directly to the DoubleClick webpage and choose the opt-out option [doubleclick.com] from the DoubleClick website. That would let them know that I did not wish to be tracked by them and a special cookie would be downloaded that would stop them from tracking me on-line.

Re:Perfect match

[rebootconrad]

I don't care what they do as long as they don't change the name... then I'd have to change all my doubleclick filters