An insight into the controversies surrounding the DOUBLE CLICK & ABACUS merger viz. privacy concerns and privacy agreement

1. By:
Ankan Jyoti Bhattacharyya
Lakshman Singh
Puja Jaiswal
Shabeer H Khan
Sunil Manchandia
DOUBLE CLICK
&
INTERNET
PRIVACY

2.  Overview
 DoubleClick
 Abacus Direct
 The “DoubleClick-Abacus Merger”
 Products
 Business model
 Privacy concerns and remedy
AGENDA

3. • Kevin O’ Conner founded DoubleClick in 1996
• Industry leader in Internet advertising
• Network of 1500 websites
• Banner ads were placed on 11000 websites
• Early 2000, DoubleClick had:
• 1,800 employees.
• 7,000 customers.
• Offices in 30 countries.
• Market capitalization of 10 billion.
• February 2000, USA Today revealed it’s plan to merge
with Abacus Direct
DoubleClick- AN OVERVIEW

4. • Leader in collecting information from catalog
purchases
• Five-year buying profile of 88 million households
• Database of personal information like:
• Name
• Address
• Phone number
• Credit card numbers
• Income
• Purchases history
Abacus- AN OVERVIEW

5. • Integrate DoubleClick's database with Abacus’
(formation of Abacus Online)
• Merge online clickstream data about an user with the
offline purchase data
• Provide users an option of “opt-out”
• Customize advertisements w.r.t individual consumers
DoubleClick-Abacus
MERGER

6. Division Product Technology
Media •eMail List
•DoubleClick
Sweepstakes
•Automated mailing
lists
•Automated online
sweepstakes
TechSolutions DART
(Dynamic,
Advertising,
Reporting, Targeting)
•Built on ASP/SaaS
ad serving
technology
•Run using cookies
Data Abacus Online •Specifically
Requested
Information +
ClickStream Data
DoubleClick PRODUCTS

7. DoubleClick generated revenue via:
• Advertising software
• Sale of license
• Installation and maintenance
• Targeted advertisements
• Putting up banner advertisements and “click-thrus”
• Using DART to monitor consumer behavior
BUSINESS MODEL

8. COMPARISION OF REVENUE
1998 1999 2000 2001
Technology 24965 74695 88428 106716
Media 74180 125499 129179 79893
Data 46979 65961 30518 37553
0
20000
40000
60000
80000
100000
120000
140000
Revenue(in1000$)
Source:
www.getfilings.com/o0000950117-00-000359.html,
www.click2advertising.com/news41.htm

9. ANALYSIS OF OPERATING
EXPENSES
1998 1999 2000 2001
Sales & marketing 52,525 103,578 95661 92153
General &
administrative
19,424 36,306 42899 36156
Product Development 12,194 28,364 20851 28436
0
20,000
40,000
60,000
80,000
100,000
120,000
Expenses(in1000$)
Source:
www.getfilings.com/o0000950117-00-000359.html,
www.click2advertising.com/news41.htm

10. • Forrester estimated online advertising would to
increase from $3.3 billion (as of 1999) to $33 billion (as
of 2004)
• Revenues for 2000 Q1 was 179% higher than last
quarter
• TechSolutions grew by almost 19% from last year
• Operating expenses under all heads was decreasing
for 1999-2000
VIABILITY OF THE MODEL

11. • Changing privacy policies without intimation
• Violating policies without detection
• Providing consumers no option of “opt-out”
• Tracking consumers without any connection to a
company
PRIVACY CONCERNS

12. • Tie up with websites which are TRUSTe, and
SecureAssure enabled.
• Provide P3P enabled software to detect violations
• Inform consumers about “opt-out” policies and click
stream data collection
• Identify and track only actual users of products of a
company
ADDRESSING PRIVACY
ISSUES

13. THANK YOU