Category: wireless

Google Gobbling Airwaves to Expand Mobile Data Reach?

excerpt and my italics: “Google’s lobbying activities and its March move to join the Coalition for 4G in America (a consortium that joins Skype, Yahoo, satellite TV provider DirecTV, EchoStar, Intel and wireless services provider Access Spectrum) are bearing fruit. The coalition – which is widely considered to be dominated by Google – has petitioned the FCC asking for policy changes in the airwaves auction. If it has its way the auction will allow packaged bidding, a policy change that would let bidders acquire nationwide licenses…If Google does indeed go wireless, then it will control two key touch points to mobile content and apps: the network and the mobile search engine. It also will be in a prime position to dictate the mobile advertising ecosystem from end to end and not have to bother with pesky mobile operators and third-party players that demand their share of the ad revenue pie. The jury is on whether this is the plan. But if anyone can pull this off, Google can.”

from paidcontent.org

Leading Ad Exec on Googleclick: Deal Should Raise “Privacy Concerns”

Omnicom Group is a global advertising/marketing powerhouse, controlling such well known “brands” as BBDO, DDB and TBWA. They represent PepsiCo, P&G, Apple, Fedex, McDonald’s, etc. etc. They know the business. Here’s what Omnicom’s president John D. Wren said yesterday about Google’s Doubleclick deal, in a story written by Reuters (my bold and italics):
“What it’s going to raise – and this will be a very good conversation in the marketplace – are privacy concerns. The technology that exists far exceeds the laws and thinking of the people that are going to be impacted by it,” he told investors on a conference call. Wren welcomed what he said would be a healthy debate that will ultimately clarify privacy laws when it comes to consumer information on the Internet.

“I’m encouraged by the deal, because I’m most encouraged by the discussion that the deal is going to cause the marketplace to have. Any definition will be positive for us.”

In other words, even the ad industry recognizes that the powerful and intrusive tools they have developed require safeguards, rules, policies, limits. For both privacy and the interactive ad market.

U.S. Search Market is Consolidated. Google to Have 75% Share

eMarketer’s release on its new report that: “There are two giants in the space, and they are getting bigger! Saying that search engine marketing is a highly concentrated industry is an understatement… [my bold]


“Google and Yahoo!’s share of U.S. Paid Search Advertising Spending”
2007 (estimates)
Google: 75.6%
Yahoo!: 16.3%
Total Market Share of the two: 91.9%


“… according to comScore, US Internet users performed 75.8% of their January 2007 searches on Google or Yahoo!, and Nielsen//NetRatings put the combined total at 76.4%… “In fact, over 90% of US paid search ad spending will go to the two search giants in 2007…”
“US spending on search advertising will rise by more than $3.2 billion from 2006 to 2008 alone… Paid search is currently the key driver of US online advertising, and spending on paid search in 2008 will exceed the $9.6 billion that was spent on all online advertising in 2004.”

from: “The Unstoppable Surge of Search Advertising.” April 20, 2007

FTC Filing today on GoogleClick First in a Series of Steps

Today, the Center for Digital Democracy joins with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) in a complaint to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission about new threats to privacy arising from the proposed takeover of Doubleclick by Google. A copy of the filing can be be found here.

It is critical that both U.S. and E.U. antitrust authorities investigate the impact of this deal on the growing consolidated online advertising marketplace. My group and allies are working on the competition and market structure issues, in addition to concerns about privacy (in the case of the online advertising market, of course, issues related to personal privacy are almost totally intertwined).

The merger between Google and Doubleclick, along with other interactive ad industry consolidation, has greater implications beyond concerns over advertising competition and privacy. Whomever controls the online ad market will determine the range and diversity of content creation and distribution online (through their ability to invest in content sources and services). Antitrust regulators must intervene to protect civil society, including ensuring the funding and availability of news and civic discourse for the digital realm.

Faster Than You Can Say Doubleclick: Google’s YouTube to Collect More Data

From Advertising Age:

excerpt: “Coming this fall from YouTube: richer demographic information.

“We’ll never have had that much data about that much content,” said Suzie Reider, chief marketing officer at YouTube. She was speaking to a group of advertising research executives in New York at the Advertising Research Foundation’s Rethink conference.

“By Q3 we’ll have a tremendous amount of metrics and data around every video,” she said. “There’s lots you can glean from looking at who’s looking at what. It’s a real-time focus group that happens all day, every day.”

“At ARF: YouTube to Get Richer Demo Data.” Abbey Klaassen. Advertising Age. April 17, 2007 [sub required]

U.S. antitrust regulators:

Just a pointer to the U.S. officials who will be reviewing–and hopefully denying–GoogleClick.

Excerpt: “XM Satellite Radio and Google Deliver Targeted Advertising to Satellite Radio Listeners

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., and NEW YORK, NY, August 2, 2006 – Google, Inc., today announced that it has reached an agreement with XM Satellite Radio, the nation’s leading satellite radio service with more than seven million subscribers, (NASDAQ: XMSR) to introduce and make available commercial advertising inventory on XM’s non-music channels to Google’s extensive advertising base through its dMarc media network (www.dmarc.net). As part of the deal, Google advertisers will now have a simple, automated way to reach XM’s millions of subscribers nationwide and XM will have access to Google’s large and small advertisers to offer relevant, targeted messages to their subscribers. After months of trials, the new platform is now in full production giving Google advertisers distribution through XM Satellite Radio…Google AdWords’ customers will be able to place terrestrial and satellite radio spots when the dMarc platform is integrated into AdWords targeted for fourth quarter of this year.”

and from Reuters: Google, Clear Channel Ink US Ad Deal [4/16/2007]
Web search leader Google has broken into radio with a multiyear advertising sales agreement with the largest U.S. broadcaster, Clear Channel Radio, the companies said on Sunday.

The deal, long anticipated by the radio industry, marks the progress Google is making as it expands into off-line media, not just in radio, but also television and newspapers—even in the face of resistance from some traditional media players.

Last week it revealed a parallel deal to supply satellite TV broadcaster EchoStar and its 13 million viewers.

Clear Channel said it has agreed for Google to sell a guaranteed portion of the 30-second spots available on its 675 radio stations in top U.S. markets, in a bid to expand the universe of local radio advertisers to Google’s online buyers.”

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Attention European Commission: Doubleclick’s Own Warning About Google’s Growing EU Clout

In Doubleclick’s “The European search advertising landscape, 2006” report, they note that (excerpts):

“Google dominates the continent

Google dominates the search market in Europe, and this is especially true so outside the U.K. In Germany, Google’s market share approaches 90%. “The game in Europe is Google,” declared Andy Atkins, CEO of WebCertain…Google sites are also visited by a greater proportion of visitors in Europe (75%) than in the US (60%)…in July 2006, Google sites were the most visited online destinations in Europe with over 150 million unique visitors in that month. The dominant search engines in Europe are also the largest media owners—Google, Yahoo and MSN…The European online ad market is concentrated in the hands of a few major players.”

Research report press release

available as pdf via Google UK homepage

What Doubleclick also knew about you: Abacus Catalog Alliance

“With more than 3.5 billion transactions from more than 90 million U.S. households, the Abacus Alliance Database is the largest proprietary database of consumer transactions used for target marketing purposes. Abacus combines the power of this shared data with advanced statistical modeling to help Alliance participants improve profitability and increase market share.

With the Abacus Catalog Alliance, marketers can leverage transactional data to identify new customers and optimize the profitability of their existing customer base. Abacus data allows them to understand what customers actually buy, not what they say they buy. No one else can offer them the same advantages.

Alliance membership is for sophisticated marketers who are looking for a large universe of quality names and proven modeling techniques to increase their revenue and profitability.”
From: Doubleclick UK (accessed April 15, 2007)

“The Abacus Alliance database contains transactional data with detailed information on consumer and business-to-business purchasing and spending behavior. Over the past ten years, transactional data has proven to be the most effective predictor of future buying behavior. By combining transactional data with advanced statistical modeling, direct marketing can help marketers target the potential consumers that are most likely to buy their products or services.”

From: Direct Marketing (Doubleclick UK) Accessed April 15, 2007

PS: Aliance Data acquired Abacus in December 2006. But the Doubleclick UK site contains the above information as of today.