DoubleClick

Google maintained its search market share in November. The news has given new life to talks of Microsoft making acquisitions to rival Google.

Google owns 57 percent of the ad-server market, according to content-tracking firm Attributor's December 18 report. Microsoft and Yahoo combined have only 15 percent. That means even if Microsoft and Yahoo agree to merge their search-advertising businesses, the combination would not come close to displacing Google on the ad-serving front -- at least not in the short term.

Advertisers are not happy with a proposed ad partnership between Google and Yahoo, and the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) has asked for the agreement to be blocked.

Since announcing the agreement to partner on advertising, Google and Yahoo have been dealing with opposition from advertisers. The agreement allows Yahoo to run ads supplied by Google alongside Yahoo's search results on some of its Web sites in the U.S. and Canada.

Google announced enhancements to its network Thursday that the search giant hopes will offer enhanced experiences for users and better value for advertisers and publishers. The changes include partner sites for which Google provides advertising.

According to Rajas Moonka, Google senior business product manager, the additions reflect the integration of DoubleClick, which Google bought last year. DoubleClick specializes in managing online advertising for Web publishers.

When Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer dropped his bid to buy Yahoo, he took pains to point out that Yahoo's search-sharing arrangements with Google were likely to bring intense antitrust scrutiny for any company acquiring Yahoo. Given Microsoft's lengthy history with antitrust enforcement, Ballmer found that particularly unappealing.

Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said Wednesday that the Internet search leader hopes its recently acquired advertising service DoubleClick will aid newspapers as they struggle to corral more online revenue.

"It's a huge moral imperative to help here," Schmidt said during a question-and-answer session at an event hosted in San Francisco by Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications.