DoubleClick

DoubleClick is a subsidiary of Google that develops and provides Internet ad serving services. Its clients include agencies, marketers (Universal McCann Interactive, AKQA etc.) and publishers who serve customers like Microsoft, General Motors, Coca-Cola, Motorola, L'Oréal, Palm, Inc., Apple Inc., Visa USA, Nike, Carlsberg among others. DoubleClick's headquarters is in New York City, United States.

DoubleClick was founded in 1995 by Kevin O'Connor and Dwight Merriman. It was formerly listed as "DCLK" on the NASDAQ, and was purchased by private equity firms Hellman & Friedman and JMI Equity in July 2005. In March 2008, Google acquired DoubleClick for US$3.1 billion. Unlike many other dot-com companies, it survived the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Today, it focuses on uploading ads and reporting their performance.

• 1 History
  • 1.1 Early developments
  • 1.2 Acquisition by Google, Inc.
• 2 Criticism
  
  DoubleClick is often linked with the controversy over spyware because browser HTTP cookies are set to track users as they travel from website to website and record which commercial advertisements they view and select while browsing.^[7] DoubleClick is considered to be malware by several commercial organizations (Adaware, Symantec, Spybot) which detect it and provide the tools to block/remove it.
  DoubleClick has also been criticized for misleading users by offering an opt-out option that is insufficiently effective. According to a San Francisco IT consulting group, although the opt-out option affects cookies, DoubleClick does not allow users to opt out of IP address-based tracking.^[8]
  DoubleClick with MSN were shown serving malware via drive-by download exploits by a group of attackers for some time in December 2010.^[9]
  
  
• 3 Products
• 4 Data collection
• 5 See also
• 6 References
• 7 External links