Oh, they must be fighting back tears of laughter up in Redmond today. After subjecting Microsoft’s business practices to years of legal review, Europe’s antitrust regulators have turned their withering attentions to Google.
Yesterday, the European Commission refused to approve Google’s proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of online-ad company DoubleClick, opting instead to subject it to a [...]
After years of suffering in the antitrust spotlight, Microsoft is with great zeal refocusing it on the Google-DoubleClick deal, which it claims would give Google control of 80% of the ads served on the Internet. On Monday, the software giant announced the Initiative for Competitive Online Marketplaces, or ICOMP, a campaign to ensure that [...]
Given Microsoft’s espoused feelings about Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick, is it really a surprise that the company has retained the services of some veteran lobbyists to make those sentiments known around the Beltway? According to a recent public-disclosure filing with the U.S. Senate, Microsoft has hired law firm Patton Boggs to highlight the competitive [...]
What an odd bit of coincidence this is. Amid increasing scrutiny of Google’s privacy practices and its planned $3.1 billion purchase of DoubleClick–which some say would concentrate too much consumer data in its hands–Microsoft and Ask.com are calling upon “leading search providers, online advertising companies and privacy advocates” to develop “privacy principles” for the search [...]
Facilities has had just a few days to pry the “Terry Semel” nameplate from the door of Yahoo’s CEO offices, and already it’s back to business as usual. This morning the company acquired Rivals.com, a college football- and basketball-focused news and community site. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but presumably the purchase price [...]
Google is beginning to act like the $159 billion industry heavyweight it really is. The company, which until about 18 months ago had paid politics little mind, is ramping up its presence in Washington. Today Google has 12 lobbyists on staff in its Beltway offices and it’s adding more, among them a former high-ranking Justice [...]
Lest there be any doubt that there is a bubble in the online advertising business, consider Microsoft’s planned purchase of aQuantive. After losing DoubleClick to Google, Right Media to Yahoo and 24/7 Real Media to WPP, Microsoft offered a jaw-dropping $6 billion in cash for aQuantive. That’s $66.50 a share–an 85% premium over [...]
If Microsoft is planning an acquisition in the online marketing and advertising space, it better act fast, because if it waits much longer there won’t be anything left to acquire. This morning marketing conglomerate WPP agreed to pay $649 million for 24/7 Real Media, one of the last remaining independent Internet advertising specialists, in an [...]
Google’s gains in search advertising have really gotten to Microsoft, and Bill Gates in particular. So much so that the Microsoft chairman plans to spend his remaining 15 to 18 months of full-time employment with the company focused on developing online and advertising services.
There’s this great scene in Penelope Spheeris’s The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years where a groupie, sharing a Jacuzzi with the band Odin, realizes that her friends have all paired off with band members and left her with the ugliest of the bunch.
That scene springs to mind in light of reports [...]
Apparently, Yahoo does have a vision. Google’s. Weeks after Google spent $3.1 billion to purchase Internet advertising company DoubleClick, Yahoo has countered with an acquisition of its own: online ad exchange Right Media.
What a surprise. Microsoft is calling for regulators to scuttle Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick.
Larry and Sergey believed we could develop a better product than the existing online advertising offerings, but we knew that [DoubleClick] could be a fallback if Google’s ad program did not work.”
– Omid Kordestani, Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Business Development at Google, October 1, 2005
Odd how things come full circle, isn’t it? [...]
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
Don't miss a post! Sign up for our Daily Email and get AllThingsD.com delivered each day.
Get columns, blogs and video from D and All Things Digital on your iPhone. Download now »
