Today is a good day. As we all look towards a weekend that extends for a couple extra days, as many of us share the opportunity to get together with friends and family and as we ponder all the resolutions we’re going to break in the new year. But for none of us is today as special as it is for the folks at Google – well – perhaps even happier are the folks at DoubleClick.
Today Google, “… welcomed the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s clearance of its planned acquisition of DoubleClick Inc.” This opens the door for Google to purchase the provider of display advertising technology earlier this year (on the last day of SES NY in fact).
Now all that stands between Google and the deal is the European Commission. Eric Schmidt obviously ” … hopes that will soon reach the same conclusion.”
But what does this mean for us? Not a whole heck of a lot really – it means that Google get to get better at targeting ads. Yeah, not something they’d do anyways right?
In this SEO’s opinion, the deal in no way compromises the right or ability of other companies to compete with Google. In fact, it appears to be the companies themselves that are helping Google take more and more market share. Yahoo! focuses too much on communities, Microsoft got in the race too late, Ask dropped Jeeves, etc. etc. Google has yet to make a major misstep and has enough trust and market share at this point to live through one.
I would also argue that the purpose of insuring competition is to protect consumers and to insure that better products get a shot rather than being crushed by larger properties. That fact of the matter is, the product (search) is free to consumers – the advertising side isn’t free but is fixed in it’s cost by what the market will bear (which is the same as it would be if Google did have a monopoly) and let’s face facts – while I’m not happy with every algorithmic shift, Google has the best and most comprehensive search utility ever created. They aren’t crushing their competition unfairly – they’re just producing a better user experience.
Now I’m not trying to say that they’re completely following their “Don’t be evil” motto to the letter each and every day. They’re definitely done some questionable things but overall they’re providing the service they promise and they’re providing it well. And to their favor, when something they do screws up, they can shift the algorithm again a couple days later. If only Microsoft had that same ability when they put out Vista. 😉
If you’d like more information on this purchase you can find a great overview on the Business Week site.