Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services, Google, Microsoft
Microsoft cries over the loss of DoubleClick
As predicted, Microsoft is crying over Google's recent purchase of DoubleClick. They believe that the combination of these two companies hurts competition in the online advertising space. Now Microsoft wants a review of the $3.1 billion sale of the company. They raise the question about how much personal information would be collected by Google by capturing consumer data on an unprecedented scale, and believe Google has substantially reduced the competition. Would Microsoft be in arms if Yahoo or Time Warner had outbid Google for DoubleClick? Somehow I don't think so. Microsoft is just doing as any other company would do in this position, biting their nails at the fact that someone else is dominating the space in which they had hoped to win out.
Remember back in the 80's when Microsoft started the domination of the PC operating system world, should there have been a stronger voice against it?
I don't know if this is a labor of love or merely the brainchild of four very gifted games designers, but Level Up is a really weird mash-up of gaming elements that you have probably never seen in a Flash game before.
Let's start with the premise itself: Groundhog Day meets Memento. The game experience revolves around 'days': you explore the world and the clock slowly ticks towards the evening. You bounce around picking up gems and talking to the denizens of 'Level Upland'. Eventually you feel tired and head back to ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Todd said 10:01AM on 4-17-2007
Beyond irony: "...Microsoft wants a review of the $3.1 billion sale of the company...and believe Google has substantially reduced the competition."
To: Bill Gates
Think of your legacy. 2007 marks the end of your reign as technologies "bully". You had a good run and the footnote in history will put Microsoft in the same breath as Hurst newspaper empire, Exxon and the DeBeers diamond cartel...
...don't go out sniveling and whining.
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Josh said 10:33AM on 4-17-2007
You basically complained about MS being hypocritical, but didn't address whether or not they might actually be right.
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spencer.r said 12:14PM on 4-17-2007
As the only other company activly bidding, Microsoft would be the ones most likely aware (except for Google and Double Click themselves) of any wrong doing...
Google gets a free pass where Microsoft gets attacked time and time again both vocally and criminally. If Microsoft HAD won the bidding war, and google suggested the same thing this blog (as well as google) would cry monopoly...except Google's got the monopoly here, so I don't see this as throwing a fit...more a tit for a tat sort of thing.
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Swiper said 1:13PM on 4-17-2007
I have to ask, are you're OK with one company controlling over 80% of all online advertising?
And it isn't even by beating competitor's in the marketplace (like MS did in the 80s). It's by purchasing another company. Can anyone really be surprised that MS (and several other companies as well) are asking the U.S. government to review this?
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katol said 9:25PM on 4-17-2007
am from the philippines and most of the op system here is powered by windows.. yeah... battlecry? or a babycry coz of capitalism and domination? duh! yeah we love windows. but if theres a better alternative (esp in my office) then id get mac os then...
so mr gates... i dnt care if ur the richest man in the world but come over here in the philippines and ill wipe ur tears with a used toilet paper
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Colin said 12:11AM on 4-18-2007
I agree with the growing anti-Google sentiment. Why should Google get a free pass to control such a large chunk of online advertising?
Microsoft is NOT evil. They have questionable business tactics and a poor reputation. That's all! Google is starting to scare me more and more.
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