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Google/DoubleClick
FT.com site
Published: Apr 16, 2007


After being on the receiving end for so many years, Microsoft can finally stir the anti-trust pot for somebody else. It should have learnt some tricks along the way to put the spotlight on Google's acquisition of online advertising platform DoubleClick. Microsoft's experience in Europe could be particularly useful, given that regulators there have been willing to go after fast-changing technology companies.

But does the complaint that a DoubleClick deal risks giving Google too much power in the provision of online adverts hold water? Possibly. Leave search advertising aside for now, where Google is the global market leader. In display advertising there are two main companies that serve ads to websites around the world. Google is the strongest in the contextual side – where ads are targeted based on the information on a given web page. DoubleClick is the strongest in ads that are placed according to the behavioural history of each internet user.

There is a risk that putting the two together – and allowing them to use the sheer scale of information they have about internet users – would raise barriers to entry for rivals. Those already exist, given the cost of building an ad-serving platform.

Microsoft, for example, has discovered how difficult it is to get into the provision of search-related advertising from scratch. Its failure, so far, in that arena is a big reason for its reaction to Google's deal. After all, advertising is the fuel for the internet and Microsoft has very little.

That is a good reason for people to take Microsoft's gripes with a fistful of salt. There are rivals who serve display ads. But regulators should still look very closely at how they define the market when assessing Google's deal. Too much dominance for one company now might be difficult to undo in the future.