DailyTech - Microsoft Wants Regulators to Monitor Google-DoubleClick Deal

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IT Microsoft Wants Regulators to Monitor Google-DoubleClick Deal
Michael Hoffman (Blog) - April 16, 2007 6:23 PM

24 comment(s) - last by Nekrik.. on Apr 17 at 6:10 PM

It only took a several days before several companies wish to challenge Google's recent acquisition

Microsoft wants federal regulators to closely scrutinize Google's recent purchase of DoubleClick, an Internet advertising supplier. Google legal officers and company officials are "very confident" that regulators will approve the deal.

Joining Microsoft in rallying for a possible investigation into the deal, AT&T and Time Warner joined forces with Microsoft -- the main reason is that the companies believe Google will have too much online advertising control. Another concern that analysts mention is user privacy: Google keeps data and logs of searches conducted on the web service -- DoubleClick currently uses a technology that is able to remember which sites a user uses to help deliver relevant ads.

"This proposed acquisition raises serious competition and privacy concerns in that it gives the Google DoubleClick combination unprecedented control in the delivery of online advertising, and access to a huge amount of consumer information by tracking what customers do online," said Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith.

News of Google's purchase of DoubleClick was announced on Friday. Google's $3.1 billion bid beat out bids from Microsoft, Time Warner Inc. and Yahoo. The deal is expected to officially close by the end of 2007.

Industry analysts predict the acquisition will allow Google to spend more time promoting the company with print, radio and television advertising. Google agreed to a deal in which it will offer advertising services to Clear Channel Communications and EchoStar Communications.

The Department of Justice has not made an official announcement as to future plans regarding the Google buy out.

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Haha!

By Ralph The Magician on 4/16/2007 11:20:04 PM , Rating: 5

I've got to admit, it's pretty funny to see Microsoft playing this role. That being said though, they are 100% right.

Google is a beast. Google is the new Microsoft. Maybe even moreso. The AT&T of the internet. I've been really disappointed with Google lately. I mean, they really only created two things: Google and Gmail. I guess you could see AdWords as an extentsion of Google, or at least as Google's revenue model, so maybe if you look at it that way—three things. Everything else they've bought. Google wanted to get in on Blogging, so they bought Blogger. Google wanted maps, so they just bought Keyhole. They bought Writely and renamed it Google Docs. Google Video failed to innovate and stand up to YouTube, so they just bought YouTube. They figured they should get into TV, so they just bought their way into Current.tv. Now they need to find a way to actually make money again to pay for all this crap they've bought...so they buy an internet advertising company.

To summarize for the lazy, things Google has bought :
Blogger = Blogger
Writely = Google Docs
YouTube
Keyhole = Google Maps
DoubleClick
Current
Picasa
SketchUp

Succesful things Google has created :
Google Search
AdWords
GMail
Google Spreadsheets (kind of)
Checkout (I think they bought something that led to this, but I can't remember)

RE: Haha!

By carl0ski on 4/17/2007 1:08:16 AM , Rating: 1

Keyhole != Google maps

Google maps was inhouse
Keyhole was the source of Google Earth
which alone is completely unrelated to google maps

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RE: Haha!

By Ralph The Magician on 4/17/2007 1:13:35 AM , Rating: 2

Mistake indeed. Not sure what I was thinking there. You are correct.

However, didn't the original satellite overlay for Google Maps come from Google Earth? It's not been replaced mostly with fresh data, but I believe the original was a port from Google Earth. I could be mistaken though.

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RE: Haha!

By Ralph The Magician on 4/17/2007 1:14:01 AM , Rating: 2

*It's now been...

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RE: Haha!

By CollegeTechGuy on 4/17/2007 12:24:16 PM , Rating: 2

Look at the whole situation...Google beat out bids from Time Warner and Microsoft...the companies are just upset because Google beat them out.

And think about this, google is mainly a search engine, email, map system, and a few other things. They don't sell anything, they are not a consumer based profit company. Google gets its money elsewhere. So google does not make money from selling any kind of profit with the knowledge it will hold from obtaining DoubleClick. Just imagine how Microsoft or Time Warner would benefit if they knew how to better sell their products. What I predict Google will do with this is just sell the knowledge it has to other companies. For instance Microsoft could ask for sites that would best advertise Vista, and Google will sell them the information.

I like google, and its a good honest company in my opinion. Especially after they told the US government to stick it where the sun don't shine when they asked google to release data to them about what users have been looking up on their search engine.

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RE: Haha!

By robertgu on 4/17/2007 12:59:34 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
I like google, and its a good honest company in my opinion. Especially after they told the US government to stick it where the sun don't shine when they asked google to release data to them about what users have been looking up on their search engine.

Yet Google is the same company that caved into chinese pressure to provide all sorts of personal information to the chinese gov't in order to tap into that lucative and growing market. Their desire for business expansion and profits quickly outweighted their desire to stand on "moral" grounds.

Google is just as "greedy" and dishonest as every other corporation in the world, they don't have your interests at heart. They are looking at their profit line.

In my opinion, the reason they flipped the finger to the US Gov't the finger is because of $$$, because if they complied with the gov't you will see users vacant Google's services at wrap speed. Google calculated that they could take the gov't to task and the gov't would not shut them down. Again, I believe if the US would have told Google "Disclose the information or we're shutting you down", I think Google's decision would have been to the benefit of themselves not you.

That's just good ole capitalism.

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RE: Haha!

By CollegeTechGuy on 4/17/2007 12:25:48 PM , Rating: 2

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RE: Haha!

By masher2

(blog) on 4/17/2007 12:51:48 PM , Rating: 2

> "They don't sell anything..."

Err, Google sells advertising. Where do you think their revenues come from?

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By tdktank59 on 4/17/2007 12:15:12 AM , Rating: 1

Ok so Microsoft wants to call the kettle black is that it?

anyways i like googles gmail its awesome compared to yahoos, msns, and aols...

sure Google is being the little man buying all the big companies it cant be...

Either way look at where they started... and then look at ms... Google started as a college project for some class or w/e don't know the details in full but that was pretty much what it was... Microsoft and IBM first competed in the operating system business back in 1990 with windows 3.0 and w/e ibms was... IBM actually had a better os but ms had better marketing...

either way google wants to make there lives easier by buying its competition... As long as they dont control the entire market in w/e categorizes it may be in then its not a monopoly and should not be questioned until it concerns enough people...

Just because someone beats your at a game or a race dosnt mean you still cant win... you just have to work harder the next time Microsoft...

RE: ha

By themadmilkman on 4/17/2007 1:40:02 AM , Rating: 2

MS has been in the OS business since long before 1990, and competed directly with IBM before that as well.

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RE: ha

By nerdboy on 4/17/2007 10:06:18 AM , Rating: 2

On August 12, 1981, IBM introduced its new revolution in a box, the "Personal Computer" complete with a brand new operating system from Microsoft and a 16-bit computer operating system called MS-DOS 1.0.

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RE: ha

By zombiexl on 4/17/2007 7:16:26 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Microsoft and IBM first competed in the operating system business back in 1990 with windows 3.0 and w/e ibms was... IBM actually had a better os but ms had better marketing...

Which OS would that be? OS2 Warp? I'm pretty sure MS had their hands in that originally and then IBM tried to screw them so they took their shit and left IBM to deal with it..

OS2 Warp was decent, but had very little hardware/spftware support compared to MS. The reason MS won was becuase they supported the independant developers better..

Windows is the beast it is today not becuase Billy Boy is the anti-christ or sold his soul (maybe he did, who knows) but because MS has provided developers with a quick way to develop. That said I always preferred borlands tools before .Net, but since MS stole Anders from Borland their (Ms's) tools have much better.

To summarize..
1) windows is huge becuase its easier to develop for.
2) Google is just as much a monopoly in its market space as MS is in the OS market space.
3) It's better for everyone if this deal is looked into.
4) for the life of me I cant understand why google stock is soo damn high, they dont really do anything. Please someone explain it to me.. It seems like a 90's .com that just wont burst.

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RE: ha

By masher2

(blog) on 4/17/2007 7:53:25 AM , Rating: 3

quote:
Which OS would that be? OS2 Warp? I'm pretty sure MS had their hands in that originally and then IBM tried to screw them so they took their shit and left IBM to deal with it..

OS2 Warp was decent, but had very little hardware/spftware support compared to MS. The reason MS won was becuase they supported the independant developers better..

Just so. MS and IBM codeveloped OS2, then terminated the agreement. IBM attempted to market OS2 directly, and tried to use its developer base as a major revenue stream. MS on the other hand, made development for Windows incredible cheap and easy. Windows apps proliferated as a result, and OS2 was sidelined.

And Microsoft's rights to their half of the OS2 code? That became the kernel of Windows NT, which grew into Windows Server and WinXP.

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RE: ha

By zombiexl on 4/17/2007 9:31:43 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
And Microsoft's rights to their half of the OS2 code? That became the kernel of Windows NT, which grew into Windows Server and WinXP.

And let us not forget IBM/MS Unix (Xenix). I replaced a number of those (extremely stable) systems with Linux for Y2K back in 99.

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wat the hell!!

By klingon on 4/17/2007 1:20:06 AM , Rating: 1

Actually i still can't believe Microsoft lost the bid....may b Microsoft went out of cash after the promotion of vista ...or may b b'cuz Microsoft did'nt take this bid tht seriously......One thing is for sure Microsoft is indubitably getting one hell of competition from various companies...specially from Google.

RE: wat the hell!!

By oTAL on 4/17/2007 10:06:16 AM , Rating: 2

MS is taking the right opportunities to raise acquisition costs for Google while taking their traditional "we can build that ourselves later for less money" approach. Plus "there's more money to be spent later".
A successful business is a marathon, not a sprint...
It's a strategy... Google is definitely overspending and they need to find new ways to make money or they'll crumble under their own weight. MS's money streams comes from plenty of different sources while all of Google's money comes from a single business... Google may be a great, innovative company with an incredible potential... but if I had to bet on one of them going belly up I'd have little doubts (I do believe they'll both be with us for a LONG time).

On the other hand, This acquisition is invaluable to Google. Not only does it solidify and expand their position in their core business, it also denies their opponents of a strategic stronghold allowing possible inroads into Google's business model and costumer pool. Even tough the acquisition will probably take a long time to turn profitable (I think it's WAY overpriced) the value of securing a position must be taken into account and is, in this case, very high.

We must also remember that this is an acquisition that actually brings in money, while others (like YouTube) will take a long time (if ever) to be turned into profitable businesses.

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RE: wat the hell!!

By fic2 on 4/17/2007 1:42:49 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
MS's money streams comes from plenty of different sources

According to http://www.newrowley.com/2007/01/microsoft_continu...
MS "only" makes money from Office ($2.169B), Windows Client ($1.88B) and Windows Server & Tools ($1.032B). I know a lot of people that are starting to use the google office tools so that might start hurting MS in their bread and butter in a few years.

Also, MS online services lost $155M.

Oh, Google had a net profit of around $3B in 2006.

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RE: wat the hell!!

By Nekrik on 4/17/2007 6:10:38 PM , Rating: 2

After reading the page you linked to I think a little more information would be helpful:

The MS figures are only for a single quarter, Q4 of 2006, total revenue for that quarter was ~13 billion, income ~4.5 billion.

MS Online Services is an investment, they do not always show revenue in the early stages of development (product development and/or market development). Same scenario with the X-Box and other new devices/services.

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lol

By phaxmohdem on 4/16/2007 10:44:38 PM , Rating: 5

Microsoft and Time Warner want the transaction to be federally looked into.... Microsoft and Time Warner lost a bid to purchase the company themselves.

Boo hoo... go cry to mommy bitches :P

That said, this does indeed raise some interesting privacy concerns.

hmm

By carl0ski on 4/17/2007 1:23:34 AM , Rating: 2

Does this Mean AOL-Time Warner Microsoft and Yahoo
would have demanded that the Watch dog, watch them if they had won the Doubleclick deal?
They all also operate under a similar model of Internet presence.
Talk about hypocritical

RE: hmm

By themadmilkman on 4/17/2007 1:42:12 AM , Rating: 2

It's not exactly hypocritical, at least in the sense that you are mentioning. None of those companies have a presence in the advertising market the way that Google does with Adwords. It is hypocritical, however, when you look at other UNRELATED business dealings that these companies have been involved in.

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Fearful hyprocrits!

By rendl420 on 4/16/07, Rating: 0

RE: Fearful hyprocrits!

By ObscureCaucasian on 4/16/2007 11:32:14 PM , Rating: 3

If MS has had to deal with government regulation because of a monopoly then that is just another reason that they would want such rules enforced on their competitors as well. It may be hypocritical, but MS probably wouldn't be taking this action if they hadn't been burned first.

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