Google to Lay Off 200 Employees
Make it official: Google's not immune from the bad economy and plummeting ad market. We've been hearing for weeks that Google would have layoffs. Google is cutting 200 employees today, the company now confirms.
It's Time to Ask if Google's Too Big to Fail
Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently told the BBC that the U.S. should break up banks that get "too big to fail." What about Google? Is it too big — and should the government take action?
Google sells the search marketing business it never wanted to own
As promised, Google has found a buyer for Performics, the search-marketing business it acquired when it bought DoubleClick. French ad conglomerate Publicis will take the Chicago-based company off Google's hands for an amount that so far remains undisclosed — probably because the fire-sale price will be low enough to…
DoubleClick's affiliate network now part of Google
In 2004, DoubleClick bought Performics for $58 million and came out with the DoubleClick's Performics affiliate ad network, a system which pays publishers after users click on an ad and make a purchase or take some other action. Now, after Google's acquired DoubleClick, its rebranded the network as the Google…
Google's answer to antitrust concerns over Yahoo deal: Whirlpool
Yahoo executives want to let Google serve ads next to its search results. But that would mean Google would be selling ads on 80 percent of all search queries online. Microsoft won't let that happen without stirring up antitrust fears in Washington. Secret Google sources tell the New York Times they plan to get…
Tech's worst workspace: Mozilla
What's so bad about Mozilla's Toronto workspace? Besides the fluorescent lighting, the colorless white walls and the folding tables, the worst thing about Mozilla's Toronto workspace is how we're sure management would improve it. With corporate graffiti, company logos and too many colors. That was management's trick…
Rank tech's 10 worst workspaces
After reviewing our post "The 10 worst workspaces in tech," commenter AdmNaismith described Facebook's office, pictured above, as "foggy, dank, dim, and utterly depressing." Commenter mothra1 hated Yahoo's New York offices more: "They suck! Lifeless and impersonal. Kinda like the douchebags who still actually work…
Google and the seven dwarfs
Google's collection of Web properties somtimes seem unconnected and disorganized. But there's a common thread between Print Ads, Audio Ads, TV Ads, Checkout, YouTube, Postini and DoubleClick. Can you guess what it is?
The 10 worst workspaces in tech
We've toured the top 10 workspaces in tech. Click to viewNow, we've gone back to Office Snapshots to find the 10 worst. What makes them so bad? Some offend with exposed fluorescent lights, gray cubicles and a dystopian corporate sheen. But others, with their pseudo-hip graffiti, kindergarten toys and plastic…
DoubleClick
DoubleClick
Here is DoubleClick's office in Colorado. I've never been there, but I know for a fact there are more Cathy cartoons pinned against gray cubicle felt in this office than any other in tech. (Photos by Ben Saitz)
Schmidt gives engineers six months to complete Google-DoubleClick integration
Engineers hate it when suits put them on public deadlines, because they then can't spend months twiddling code to perfection. That's exactly what Google CEO Eric Schmidt did yesterday when he told CNBC's Maria Bartiromo that the integration of DoubleClick's ad-serving platform into Google's AdWords would take six…
Google CEO backpedals on privacy promises
Last year, Google placated privacy-minded opponents of its DoubleClick acquisition with promises to create a new kind of Web browser "cookie," a file which keeps personally identifiable information about a website's users. Now that Google has swallowed DoubleClick, the online advertising company seems to have lost…
Did you sign Google's noncompete? Good, you're fired
A recently departed DoubleClicker tells us that Google managers asked employees at the online ad company it acquired last month to sign one-year noncompete agreements. Most agreed, thinking that it would spare their jobs — but then layoffs came a week later. They were "pretty pissed" over the bait-and-switch and…
On Wall Street, layoffs mean you get $50,000 for never showing up
Google offered laid-off DoubleClick employees two options: take two months pay and find work at a competitor or take four months pay and join another industry. Some lucky DoubleClick employees were offered contract positions, which means they have to head to the elevator and buy lunch on the streets every day just…
Some DoubleClick layoff victims now foosball-free Google contractors
A select few of the 300 DoubleClick employees Google laid off yesterday will be placed into "transitional roles" and offered contract positions, reports the WSJ. That's not much of a reprieve. Google HR makes contractors sign agreements to abide by strict rules. They're not allowed to " use massage chairs,…
Former Spy magazine publisher writes corporate memo
Google plans to sell DoubleClick's search engine marketing division. "Maintaining objectivity in both search and advertising is paramount to our mission and core to the trust we ask from our users," Google's DoubleClick integration boss Tom Phillips wrote on the company's blog. In the '80s, Phillips ran a magazine…
DoubleClick layoffs were pushed back to avoid spoiling yesterday's fun
We reported Google layoffs at DoubleClick would start yesterday, but they only began today. Why? A DoubleClick employee said that Google pushed the cuts back "because yesterday was April Fools' Day." Ah, make the peons wait a day while Larry and Sergey have their fun. A quaintly botched approximation of mercy, no…
DoubleClick severance: up to four months' pay, if you don't go work for Google's enemies
Google layoffs at DoubleClick, the online-advertising tech company based in New York that it just acquired, began a day later than expected. Today, among others, the entire finance team was shown the door. It's a bright, sunny day in New York; a good start for ex-DoubleClickers' four-month vacation. Google's…
Google to lay off 15 percent at DoubleClick
A tipster with two friends at DoubleClick tells us Google will cut DoubleClick's staff by 15 percent, trimming the sales teams that push Dart for Advertisers and Dart for Publishers by 20 percent. Google plans to give those ad-targeting services to its advertisers for free, making money on brokering ads. Most of the…
