You gotta love how easy it is to make headlines.  Put the words “Google” and “acquisition” in the same headline and wah-bam!  This time, the initial reaction to Google potentially acquiring Invite Media has many ad networks, publishers, and even agencies very nervous.  At this point, won’t Google simply own all search and more than 50% of the display, including the ad serving portion? The answers are, yes, no, and it won’t matter in the end.

Sure, if this acquisition actually happened then Google would have the potential to own the transactions within a disproportionate amount of the display market (through acquisition) in addition to already owning (through its own entrepreneurial development) the majority of search.  The former is only potential, not reality, though.  The “no” part of the answer comes from publisher reactions within Invite or the to-be-acquired DSP.  You think Yahoo is going to keep Right Media as part of a DSP that is owned by Google?  You think MSN will continue with its integration of AdECN into that DSP if Google has the potential to monetize and dominate its inventory?  Additionally, if you look through most DSPs site lists, Google’s own content network already makes up a huge portion of the inventory available within the interface.  Surely Google can’t be buying a company for its interface for accessing its own inventory… for which it already has an interface!

In the end, though, none of this will matter.  You see, sometimes I really enjoy the ‘I told you so’ dance (which I believe was made popular by Grace Adler of Will & Grace fame).  In September, 2008, I proposed that Google’s massive acquisition spree would end in anti-trust litigation.  With the AdMob deal clearing the pole vault bar by a t-shirt’s thickness, it doesn’t seem that any other major acquisitions that spread Google’s tentacles further into the industry for domination’s sake will pass muster.  Or, if they do, it’ll simply lead to a Google break-up.  Just as IBM pounded its chest in the 80s and Microsoft did in the 90s, Google has done so throughout the 2000s.  But it has yet to happen in history that a tech giant has dominated for more than a decade.  It’s my prediction, again, that this won’t change now.

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