Archive for March 15th, 2008
On Tuesday, the European Commission cleared Google’s $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick without conditions. The EC review began six months ago and concluded the transaction is not likely to harm competition for online advertising.With that approval, Google quickly closed its acquisition of DoubleClick.
The EC reasoned that Google offers free search capabilities and sells advertising through its AdSense network. DoubleClick, by contrast, sells ad serving, management and reporting technology to Web-site publishers and to advertisers and agencies, with a focus on relevant placements.
“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,” the EC said. “Even if DoubleClick could become an effective competitor in online intermediation services, it is likely that other competitors would continue to exert sufficient competitive pressure after the merger.”
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March 15th, 2008
Google isn’t wasting any time leveraging its newest asset. After officially closing the $3.1 billion DoubleClick acquisition earlier this week, the company rolled out a new product: Google Ad Manager.Ad Manager is a free hosted ad- and inventory-management tool that publishers can use to sell, schedule, deliver and measure their directly sold and network-based ad inventories. The new tool is currently in beta.
Google Senior Product Manager Rohit Dhawan said the tool helps publishers address the challenge of effectively managing their inventory and ensuring all their clients’ ads appear on time. Google Ad Manager is looking for a niche with publishers who have small sales teams.
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March 15th, 2008
Senior executives from Microsoft 
and Yahoo powwowed this week to discuss Redmond’s $44.6 billion offer to acquire Yahoo, according to The Wall Street Journal. The reported gathering could bring the companies closer to agreement. Executives from the companies had not met to discuss Microsoft’s Jan. 31 offer since Yahoo rejected it in February.Citing “people familiar with the matter,” the Journal reported that Monday’s meeting wasn’t a negotiation, and no bankers attended. Instead, Yahoo allowed Microsoft to present its vision of a merged company at a location near Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters.
Yahoo executives reportedly listened, but further talks were not scheduled. It remains unclear, the Journal reported, whether Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer were present at the meeting.
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March 15th, 2008
