Internet titan Google has decided to flex some of its fiscal muscle, announcing a $3.1 billion agreement to acquire online advertising firm DoubleClick, itself one of the largest players in the online advertising arena. The deal expands Google’s dominance of the market, giving it both new technology to compliment Google’s existing AdSense offerings, but also DoubleClick’s considerable demographic data and client base. Cash from the deal goes mainly to DoubleClick’s primary owners, private equity firms JMI Equity and Hellman & Friedman, who took DoubleClick private in a $1.1 billion deal in 2005. The acquisition is Google’s largest to date, and weighs in at nearly double the size of the company’ much-publicized $1.65 billion acquisition of video sharing site YouTube in October, 2006. Read more...