Google competing in yet another way with DoubleClick
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-09-20 09:59
The New York Times (and others) reported yesterday Google's announcement that it was launching a "Gadget ads" program which is essentially display-ad-serving to "widgets' which are essentially "mini-websites" within websites.
It is getting harder and harder for Google antitrust lawyers to argue with a straight face that Google does not compete in the market of "display-ad-serving" with DoubleClick.
- Google is the world leader in "serving":
- search text ads
- contextual ads;
- video display ads through YouTube,
- And is now entering:
- mobile ad- serving;
- and widget ad-serving to these mini-websites withing websites.
- Google's definition of "ad-serving" is increasingly becoming too-cute-by-half semantic wordplay and not a functional or factual definition.
Antitrust officials should ask Google if they are colluding with DoubleClick to not compete while the merger is pending.
- It seems increasingly obvious that Google's massive infrastructure cloud is capable of serving ads in most any forum imaginable.
- So why has Google not chosen to compete more with DoubleClick?
- Have Google and DoubleClick secretly agreed on divying up the market and assume the merger will be approved and are getting a head start on market coordination?
