As I was reading the news today about the European Commission's decision yesterday that will delay Google's purchase of Doubleclick, the pesky trojans and malware tried to get me and was served up by a major news site. So there are 2 DoubleClick stories I'll quickly cover here: The Google/DoubleClick deal + DoubleClick being accused of allowing trojans and malware to propagate through their ad serving system.
Business Week: The EU Delays Google's Ad Buy
"The European Commission's move, which extends the decision deadline until Apr. 2, is a setback for a deal that would broaden Google's already considerable ability to determine ad placement not only on its own search engine—the world's largest—but also across untold sites across the Web."
Eric Schmidt, chairman and chief executive of Google said: 'We are obviously disappointed by the European Commission's decision to extend its review of our acquisition of DoubleClick.'
More coverage
here and
here.
eWeek: DoubleClick Serves Up Vast Malware Blitz
"Marketing professionals have complained of their ad servers being "hijacked" at sites, including The Wall Street Journal, Discovery and BizJournals. It's not that the servers have been hijacked, Harvey said, but rather that a toolbar or some other mechanism is overlaying the intended ad with inappropriate content.
It's not clear yet whether all the sites are having the same problem, given that some sites are delivering the bogus anti-spyware and others are experiencing normal ads being replaced with ads for porn or other inappropriate material."
DoubleClick says they are trying to implement measures to screen out these rogue ads but ultimately publishers are responsible for screening who advertises on their site.
DoubleClick: Trojans, Malware and EU Problems
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