, Columnist
Why Google Might Prefer Dropping a $22 Billion Business
Divesting its third-party ad operation could stave off even worse regulatory action.
That ad was probably served up by Google.
Photographer: Leon Neal/Getty Images
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For Google, a partial voluntary breakup of its advertising business might be preferable to whatever regulators come up with on their own.
Whenever people rattle off big tech deals whose regulatory approval was, in hindsight, a mistake, they tend to include the Alphabet Inc. unit’s $3.2 billion acquisition of DoubleClick in 2008. I’ve done it three times in the past 12 months — here, here and here — lumping it alongside Facebook Inc.’s deals for WhatsApp and Instagram on the antitrust wall of shame.