Google to buy DoubleClick for $3.1 billion

By: Elinor Mills
Topics: Google

just in Google says it has agreed to buy online advertising company DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash. The acquisition will give Google the ability to sell online ads that appear on Web sites other than those in its network. The deal will mean that Web site publishers will get access to new advertisers, and agencies and advertisers will be able to manage search and display ads in one centralized spot, Google says.

Google is buying DoubleClick from San Francisco-based private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, which acquired DoubleClick in July 2005, and JMI Equity and Management.

"It has been our vision to make Internet advertising better--less intrusive, more effective and more useful," Sergey Brin, Google co-founder and president of technology, said in a statement. "Together with DoubleClick, Google will make the Internet more efficient for end users, advertisers and publishers."

Microsoft had been in discussions to buy DoubleClick, according to reports in The Wall Street Journal. In addition to Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL were reportedly in talks with the company.

The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

More to follow as this story develops.

Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press.
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by cidaia February 8, 2010 10:31 AM EST: Google ought to get the same fine that the big corporations have pushed on file-sharing music thieves.

Just as stealing an album is fined per song, Google ought to be fined per page, not per book.; Reply to this comment


by barbaram99 February 7, 2010 8:39 AM EST: I would not buy a e-reader. Yet.as a lrgally blind person I have no idea what it is. Can't e-books be read on the computer..Ye knoe one's notebook.; Reply to this comment


by sjc_1 February 5, 2010 4:07 PM EST: This may assume the people will read War and Peace on their Kindle rather than The Da Vinci Code, I don't think so. Google is already competing with the iPhone, wait until they compete with the iPad.; Reply to this comment