• Wall Street Journal, Monday, April 2, 2007 10:15 AM

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Google has now entered the race to buy the ad-serving firm DoubleClick, potentially leading to a fierce bidding war between the Web's biggest firms. Last week the Journal reported that Microsoft was the frontrunner to buy the ad-serving giant, but now that the price has surpassed $2 billion, the software giant appears less likely to do so, the sources said.

Regardless, Hellman & Friedman, the private equity firm that now owns DoubleClick, is planning on offloading the company for about twice what it purchased the Web advertising broker for in 2005. Yahoo and Time Warner's AOL are also understood to be in the running--although it's unclear whether AOL, which has far less cash at its disposal, has bowed out or not. The Journal report said talks were "fluid" between the various interested parties.

The entry of Google, which has a history of winning almost everything it bids for, reflects widespread concern about the search giant's increasing power. DoubleClick has several big customers using its ad management technology, including AOL, one of its biggest clients. Protecting that relationship is said to be part of the reason Time Warner is interested in buying the company.

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