Microsoft, AT&T, Yahoo, and advertising agency holding company WPP are prodding the federal government to investigate the Google-DoubleClick deal. Time Warner has also thrown its hat in the ring on the side of the anti-trusters, although it has done so very quietly, perhaps because Google owns a billion-dollar stake in Time Warner's Internet access service/portal AOL. Comcast's position on the deal is nonexistent. Historically, all cable systems operators, and for that matter satcasters and telecos with video platforms, are extremely customer-privacy-sensitive. The government has mandated fines of $500 per day per subscriber for any customer privacy violation that comes to its attention, although the operators are permitted to mine their subscriber data to upsell services. In addition, to the detriment of their on-demand platform advertising revenue generation efforts, the cable operators have consistently informed the advertising industry that outside of Nielsen or fusion projectable ratings, they will only provide limited subscriber interactive data points, such as unique monthly views, gross monthly views, viewing duration, graphs delineating day of the week and daypart viewing, and request for interaction opt-ins. Unfortunately, the system operators have not backed down in the last four years that the 4A's Advanced TV Committee has been pressuring them to offer more data points. This is a far cry from the valuable data that online companies such as Google and DoubleClick are permitted to glean from behavioral activity and the scrutinization of Web search preferences.
So what keeps Comcast mum and the other cable systems operators barely audible on this $3.1 billion transaction? Comcast is the largest pay TV provider in the US with 23.5 million subscription households, and the second largest Internet service provider in the US with 12.1 million customers. AT&T is the number one Internet service provider in the US with 12.9 million customers, and AOL is number three with 12 million customers. Yet, why is that the cable/ISP companies are non-vocal about Google's acquisition of DoubleClick, when it could presumably lead to an online advertising monopoly? Particularly when the cable companies are investing so heavily in the development of a broadband video presence, such as Fancast, Ziddio and Comcast.net, as well as brokering deals with the likes of NBC Universal and News Corp. as a distributor of their online video content?
The only possible scenario is the possibility that if the Google and DoubleClick deal survives scrutiny, and other display ad services companies are acquired by the likes of Yahoo, Microsoft, AT&T and/or AOL, couldn't Comcast use these mergers and acquisitions as a precedent-setting platform. Specifically, Comcast could challenge the stringent TV privacy regulatory issues on mining its subscriber data, when it attempts to marry the knowledge that the company gleans from its Web activities with that of its digital cable TV viewing platform. More meaningfully, Comcast could leverage its quadruple bypass services of cable, broadband, telephony and wireless, in order to deploy more precise addressable and segmentation applications to generate substantially more revenue from advertisers and squash the competition in its area of dominant influence.
Thanks Mitch Oscar EVP, Director CaratDigital, May 2007
So what keeps Comcast mum and the other cable systems operators barely audible on this $3.1 billion transaction? Comcast is the largest pay TV provider in the US with 23.5 million subscription households, and the second largest Internet service provider in the US with 12.1 million customers. AT&T is the number one Internet service provider in the US with 12.9 million customers, and AOL is number three with 12 million customers. Yet, why is that the cable/ISP companies are non-vocal about Google's acquisition of DoubleClick, when it could presumably lead to an online advertising monopoly? Particularly when the cable companies are investing so heavily in the development of a broadband video presence, such as Fancast, Ziddio and Comcast.net, as well as brokering deals with the likes of NBC Universal and News Corp. as a distributor of their online video content?
The only possible scenario is the possibility that if the Google and DoubleClick deal survives scrutiny, and other display ad services companies are acquired by the likes of Yahoo, Microsoft, AT&T and/or AOL, couldn't Comcast use these mergers and acquisitions as a precedent-setting platform. Specifically, Comcast could challenge the stringent TV privacy regulatory issues on mining its subscriber data, when it attempts to marry the knowledge that the company gleans from its Web activities with that of its digital cable TV viewing platform. More meaningfully, Comcast could leverage its quadruple bypass services of cable, broadband, telephony and wireless, in order to deploy more precise addressable and segmentation applications to generate substantially more revenue from advertisers and squash the competition in its area of dominant influence.
Thanks Mitch Oscar EVP, Director CaratDigital, May 2007
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