Google walked away as the winner from a fierce three-way bidding war for DoubleClick between Google and its rivals Microsoft and Yahoo.
The US$3.1 billion cash deal nearly triples the US$1.1 billion DoubleClick commanded when it was taken private in 2005 by San Francisco-based private equity firm Hellman and Friedman.
Google enterprise vice-president and general manager Dave Girouard is a keynote speaker at the CeBIT Connect Keynote series on May 1.
Google was already the largest internet advertising company in the world, with the DoubleClick deal further cementing that role as an advertising giant.
In addition to leveraging the DoubleClick corporate rolodex of ad advertisers, advertising agencies and advertising buyers and publishers, the company will use DoubleClick technology to expand beyond simple text ads into multimedia formats.
Google immediately moved to reassure users that the acquisition would not change the company’s policy of ensuring a clear distinction between sponsored links, advertising and search results.
In a statement posted to the company’s corporate blog, Google product management vice-president Susan Wojcicki told users the company had “tirelessly pursued, the idea that serving relevant unintrusive ads would best serve our advertisers in the long term” and that goal would not change.
“Sponsored information served by Google has always been, and will always be, clearly distinguished from objective content available via our search results and across our partner network,” Ms Wojcicki said.
“We want you to find the information that you are looking for—be it in an ad or elsewhere—quickly and without hassle. We know that our collaboration with DoubleClick will serve and advance this goal,” she said.
Google co-founder and technology president Sergey Brin said in a statement that it remained the company’s intention “to make Internet advertising better – less intrusive, more effective, and more useful.”
“Together with DoubleClick, Google will make the internet more efficient for end users, advertisers, and publishers.
Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said “DoubleClick's technology is widely adopted by leading advertisers, publishers and agencies, and the combination of the two companies will accelerate the adoption of Google's innovative advances in display advertising.”
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