• The Associated Press (via BusinessWeek), Wednesday, September 26, 2007 10:46 AM

Rumors are swirling that Time Warner Inc.'s AOL LLC business is considering buying ValueClick Inc. to boost its online advertising properties.

The company is one of few publicly traded companies in its sector that hasn't yet been gobbled up by a major technology company. In the past year, Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and WPP PLC -- among others -- have acquired a variety of public and private companies in the space. The company's units include an affiliate marketing business, which could be of interest to AOL since AOL has shown interest in buying such companies.

In January, AOL offered to pay about $900 million for Swedish online marketing company TradeDoubler AB. The bid failed to get the requisite amount of shareholder support, though, and AOL withdrew it in March. But even if AOL is interested in ValueClick, the online advertising company's varied business has some overlaps with AOL's current online advertising properties: Advertising.com and Tacoda Inc.

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