DoubleClick

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for the computer term, see double-click.

DoubleClick is a provider of internet ad serving software. User profiles are created by tracking user behavior on the DoubleClick network. Consequently customized banner ads according to the user´s profile can be delivered. Its clients include agencies, marketers (Universal McCann Interactive, AKQA etc.) and publishers who service customers such as Microsoft, General Motors, Coca-Cola, Motorola, L’Oreal, Palm, Visa USA, Nike, Carlsberg and many more.

Formerly listed as DCLK on the NASDAQ, and purchased by private equity firm Hellman and Friedman in July 2005, DoubleClick was founded in 1996, and is well established in internet marketing. They were one of the few dot-coms to survive the dot-com bubble burst.

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[edit] History

DoubleClick was formerly engaged in the online media business, in addition to ad serving, meaning it helped web sites sell advertising to marketers. However, DoubleClick divested its media business several years ago, and today DoubleClick is purely involved in ad serving from the technology end — uploading ads and reporting on their performance.

DoubleClick is sometimes linked with the controversy over spyware which is installed to track users as they travel from website to website and record what commercial advertisements they view and select while browsing. However, the company maintains that it is important to understand the difference between DoubleClick's ad serving tags and the spyware/adware companies.

The companies which are most often referred to as spyware or adware represent programs external to the browser that may engage in activities such as: monitoring keystrokes or movement on the Web, examining files and programs installed on the user's hard-drive and generally behaving similarly to a virus. DoubleClick's DART, on the other hand, is well-governed within the framework of the browser. DART's opt-out policies are very straightforward and DoubleClick cookies are easy to identify and deactivate, but inexperienced users may still have difficulty with this.

In 1999 a $1.7 billion merger with data-collection agency Abacus Direct, a company that works with offline catalog companies, was followed by the announcement to link anonymous Web-surfing profiles with personally identifiable information (name, address, telephone number, e-mail, address etc.) Source, source collected by Abacus. This merger made waves and was heavily criticized by privacy organizations. The controversy was even more fueled when it was discovered that sensitive financial information users entered on a popular Web site (offering financial software) was being sent to DoubleClick, which delivered the ads. Several companies distanced themselves from DoubleClick. After interventions by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and privacy advocates DoubleClick finally dropped its plans to link names of the Abacus Database with anonymous users´s web profiles.

In April 2005, Hellman & Friedman, a San Francisco-based private equity firm announced its intent to acquire the company and operate it as two separate divisions with two separate CEOs for TechSolutions and Data Marketing. The deal was closed in July 2005.

Their global headquarters are located in New York at:

111 Eighth Avenue
10th Floor
New York, New York

[edit] Customer profiles

In order to create profiles non-personally identifiable information such as IP address, domain, browser, operation system, local time and date, page viewed are collected. Furthermore, DoubleClick may use information provided by publishers or advertisers such as gender, age, education, financial status etc. [1]

Doubleclick´s technology collects personally identifiable information, too. The company explains that “the personal information collected is used only for the purpose for which it is requested”. The information stored on DoubleClick servers belongs to DoubleClick´s clients. According to DoubleClick it generally uses the data only for “statistical or aggregate information” source. The clients themselves promise contractually not to use information that “DoubleClick could recognize as either sensitive or personally identifiable” to target ads source”.

[edit] Products

DoubleClick offers technology products and services which are sold primarily to advertising agencies and media companies to allow clients to traffic, target, deliver, and report on their interactive advertising campaigns. The company's products include:

  • DART For Publishers (DFP): An ASP solution for publishers to manage their online advertising
  • DART For Advertisers (DFA): An ASP solution for advertising agencies to manage their online advertising
  • DART Enterprise: A software solution for publishers
  • DART Motif: A rich media solution for delivering Flash based advertising
  • DART Search: A highly scalable Keyword Management and Bid Management solution for advertising agencies and search engine marketers that creates work efficiencies and increases ROI.

[edit] Competitors

Primary competitors include:

[edit] Data collection

DoubleClick targets along various criteria. Targeting can be accomplished using IP addresses, business rules set by the client or by reference to information about users stored within cookies on their machines. Some of the types of information collected are:

In addition, the cookie information may be used to target ads based on the number of times the user has been exposed to any given message. This is known as "frequency capping".

[edit] External links

[edit] References

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