On April 13, it was announced the Google was aquiring DoublickClick for a staggering 3.1 billion dollars.  This came as quite a surprise to me, remembering all of the uproar in late 1999 and early 2000 about DoubleClick and cookie privacy, originally stemming from the June 1999 announcement of merger between Abacus Direct and DoubleClick. It even led to state and federal governement probes, including by the Federal Trade Commission for DoubleClicks practice of data collection of consumer records for "profiling". All because of a little cookie!

Some may not remember all of that, but I do, and that was the first thing I thought of when I heard about the aquisition. They have many huge clients and mountains of data on consumers who frequent their client websites. Can you imagine all of the data that DoubleClick has been collecting since 1996?

In the Google to Aquire DoubleClick press release, it states:

"The combination of Google and DoubleClick will offer superior tools for targeting, serving and analyzing online ads of all types, significantly benefiting customers and consumers:

• For users, the combined company will deliver an improved experience on the web, by increasing the relevancy and the quality of the ads they see. "

How do you provide relevancy for specific markets? In the old days it was just the keywords associated with a market, but with new movements in localization AND profiling of users, you can deliver better search results and "relevancy" by analyzing groups of users in a more defined geographical and demographical fashion. This is "targeting" aka "profiling", which leads to "increasing the relevancy and the quality of the ads they see".

Yesterday there was a new press release concerning the "data ownership":

DOUBLECLICK STATEMENT REGARDING DATA OWNERSHIP

New York, 4/20/2007 - DoubleClick Inc., the premier provider of digital marketing and technology services, issued the following statement regarding data ownership. Since the announcement of Google’s intention to acquire DoubleClick, several media reports have incorrectly suggested that data collected by the company’s online display advertising technology could be used by Google, or combined with information owned by Google. This is simply not the case. Information collected by DoubleClick DART® ad serving technology belongs to DoubleClick’s clients and not to DoubleClick. Any and all information collected by DoubleClick is, and will remain, the property of the company’s clients. Ownership rights, like the other terms of DoubleClick's client contracts, will be unaffected by any acquisition. Further, Google would not be able to match its search data to the data collected by DoubleClick, as DoubleClick does not have the right to use its clients' data for such purposes. By contract, DoubleClick has only the limited rights to use data for its aggregate reporting and to disclose data, if so required, to government authorities. About DoubleClick Inc. DoubleClick is a provider of digital marketing technology and services. The world's top marketers, publishers and agencies utilize DoubleClick's expertise in ad serving, rich media, video, search and affiliate marketing to help them make the most of the digital medium. From its position at the nerve center of digital marketing, DoubleClick provides superior insights and insider knowledge to its customers. Headquartered in New York, and with 17 offices and development hubs and 15 data centers worldwide, the company employs more than 1200 people and delivers billions of digital communications every day. Learn more at www.doubleclick.com DoubleClick press contacts: Elizabeth Crosta, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, 415-596-9585, Elizabeth.crosta@ogilvypr.com

All this tells us is the data collected is property of the DoubleClick's clients. However, "Google would not be able to match its search data to the data collected by DoubleClick, as DoubleClick does not have the right to use its clients' data for such purposes"...yet. It then states "client contracts, will be unaffected by any acquisition", but when will those contracts expire and need updating to reflect Google's ownership and use of the data? How many will volunteer this data? The simple fact is that this aquisition is FOR THE DATA, regardless of any immediate claims that it is not.

Is this a bad thing? In my opinion, No, unless you are one of those privacy nuts. Personally, if a search engine can provide me the most relevant search results and ads for what I am looking for, I will use it regardless if it is Google or one of the other beast. If it needs to filter those results based on my searching habits, by all means do so. If localizing and profiling me by demographics makes the results and ads more relevant, it is all the better.

The only thing I would be nervous about is if somehow Goggle aquired ChoicePoint, an Equifax company. If this ever happens, it would be proof that Google IS evil.

"Ye who dies with the most data wins." - Xfernal