In 1995,
Kevin O'Connor and
Dwight Merriman developed the concept for DoubleClick in O'Connor's basement. They created a system to display
banner ads across a network of websites and track their performance to better target internet users. Later that year, O'Connor and Merriman met Fergus O'Daily, the CEO of Poppe Tyson. Poppe Tyson had created an Interactive Sales division, but lacked the technology to deliver online ads across its network of client's sites. O'Connor, Merriman, and O'Daily decided to merge the two companies. To prevent competition from each company's sales teams, in November 1995 DoubleClick was spun off as an independent, wholly owned subsidiary. DoubleClick was founded as one of the earliest known
Application Service Providers (ASP) for internet "ad-serving"—primarily banner ads. In February 1998, during the
dot-com bubble, the company became a
public company, trading on NASDAQ under the symbol DCLK, via an
initial public offering. Shares rose 75% on the first day of trading. In June 1999, DoubleClick acquired Abacus Direct, which marketed consumer-purchasing data to catalog firms. In July 1999, DoubleClick acquired NetGravity and rebranded NetGravity AdServer as
DART Enterprise. As of 2002, DoubleClick faced six lawsuits, including class-action lawsuits, related to invasions of privacy. Privacy groups complained that DoubleClick's plan to combine its online profiling information with offline information gathered by Abacus Direct would violate privacy rules, including the
Stored Communications Act, the
Wiretap Statute, and the
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as it would allow the company to match a person's identity with their online habits, which it tracks through cookies. In February 2000, the FTC announced it had launched an investigation into the matter. The investigation was concluded in January 2001, with the FTC stating that it found no evidence that DoubleClick used or disclosed consumers personal identifying information. DoubleClick eventually entered into a settlement agreement where DoubleClick was required to explain its privacy policy in "easy-to-read" language; conduct a public information campaign consisting of 300 million banner ads inviting consumers to learn more about protecting their privacy; and institute data purging and opt-in procedures among other requirements. In 2004, DoubleClick acquired Performics, which offered
affiliate marketing,
search engine optimization, and
search engine marketing products. These products were integrated into the core DART system and rebranded DART search. DoubleClick Advertising Exchange connected both media buyers and sellers on an
advertising exchange much like the financial negotiations of listed companies' capital stock. Google sold Performics in 2008 to
Publicis. In April 2005,
Hellman & Friedman, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, agreed to acquire the company for $1.1 billion. ==Acquisition by Google==