Google has entered the bidding for online advertising company DoubleClick, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Google’s entry comes as the bidding price exceeds $2 billion, a price point which may force Microsoft to reconsider how badly it wants to acquire the company.
Yahoo and AOL are both reported to be interested in acquiring DoubleClick, which should earn $300 million in revenue this year (up from $150 million in 2006).
In purchasing DoubleClick, Google would ostensibly open up its advertising network to third-party reporting, the absence of which has caused some grumblings among advertisers and agencies.
Google’s interest in DoubleClick may also be due to their video advertising plans. But DoubleClick’s DART advertising system also has a treasure trove of user data, which would be useful to any one of the four Internet giants.