Wannabe online-ad giant Microsoft has scored a deal to serve ads for CNBC.com. The site's previous ad provider was soon-to-be-Google-subsidiary DoubleClick. This would be more impressive if Microsoft and NBC didn't already share considerable Web ties, like their MSNBC.com joint venture. [Silicon Alley Insider]
The Federal Trade Commission will approve Google's $3.1 billion DoubleClick acquisition as early as next week, a lawyer involved in the merger told Tech Confidential. Microsoft had led the charge against the merger, claiming it would give Google control over 80 percent of online advertising. And, even though Google's merger will soon go through, it's hard not to credit Microsoft for slowing Google down.
Senators Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) want to make one thing very clear about Google's proposed $3.1 billion DoubleClick merger, currently under FTC review. OMFG, WTF? In a joint open letter to the Federal Trade Commission, the pair acknowledge that no, they don't understand much about the deal or its implications. But from what they've heard, the pair thinks the FTC should, you know, continue to take a good look at it. That's one way to take credit for the outcome, whoever wins.
The Federal Trade Commission announced yesterday that its decision regarding Google's purchase of DoubleClick will focus on antitrust rather than privacy issues. A decision could come this month. And this has absolutely nothing to do with the detailed search logs Google keeps on all queries originating from ftc.gov. [AdAge]
Leave it to a former penal colony to rush to judgment. The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission has already approved Google's $3.1 billion DoubleClick acquisition, only six months after Google announced the deal in April. The commission found the two companies were not competitors. In the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission is expected to approve the deal, but it's taking its time while Microsoft's lobbyists spur noisy debate in Congress. Europe's the model of propriety here. Its regulatory body has already heard the case, but wants more time to make further inquiries. The lesson in all this? Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer must not be too worried about his company's Australian prospects. Either that, or Google's right-wing Australian mouthpiece, Rob Shilkin, is actually good at his job.
In a Senate hearing on Google's acquisition of DoubleClick Thursday, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said Google wants to "record almost everything you see and do on the Internet and use that information to target ads." Well, of course. But with its rumored plans to try to buy Yahoo or Facebook, doesn't Microsoft desperately wish it could do exactly the same thing? Who are they trying to fool? U.S. senators, apparently. [Financial Times]
It's a sneaky strategy used by savvy Internet marketers everywhere: Buy your competitor's name as a keyword, and serve up pay-per-click ads to poach customers from the search results. But for DoubleClick, the online-ad network that Google's trying to buy, it seems a bit foolish to use Google keyword ads to go after AdBrite, the San Francisco-based competitor. For one thing, it's apparently a violation of Google's own rules about trademarks. And on top of that, it comes across as an admission of weakness — that customers are more likely to be googling "AdBrite" than they are "DoubleClick."
Kevin Johnson, who runs Microsoft's Windows and Web businesses, is a master salesman. And making a sale, of course, requires a fine-tuned ability to bullshit on demand. Nowhere is that ability more on display than in Microsoft's announcement of a deal to buy AdECN, a supposedly neutral marketplace where advertisers and publishers can buy and sell online ads. AdECN is also a competitor to recent Yahoo acquisition Right Media and DoubleClick, which Google is trying to buy. Johnson claims Microsoft won't favor its own websites, or partners like Facebook or Digg. Of course, that's nonsense. How do I know that? AdECN told me so.
