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Akamai Bets $95 Million On Better Ad Targetting; Buys acerno
Akamai wants to branch out of the content delivery business. Today it announced an all-cash, $95 million acquisition of acerno, a subsidiary of database marketing firm i-Behavior. Acerno pools purchasing data from online retailers, who then share it among themselves in an aggregate, anonymous way. So if one retailer sees that people who buy pencils also buy sharpeners, when somebody looks at a sharpener on another site it will know to put up an offer for a pencil. This data becomes more valuable as the connections become less obvious.
Akamai will combine acerno’s purchasing data with its own Web browsing data to offer Websites an even more refined way to target ads. It is blending acerno into a newly created data business called Advertising Decision Solutions.
Investors, though, may question what a content delivery network is doing getting into the advertising business. The stock is down 2 percent on the news.
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Akamai Fires Engineer Who Spoke Out Against Music Tax
Akamai engineering manager David Barrett, who spoke on the record as being opposed to the Warner Music sponsored music tax (more) last month, was fired on April 25, sources say.
Barrett criticized the proposed music tax in an interview with Portfolio Magazine. The relevant text:
David Barrett, engineering manager for peer-to-peer networks at Web content-delivery giant Akamai, says he’s opposed to it on principle. Griffin’s plan, he says, is tantamount to extortion, because it forces everyone to join. “It’s too late to charge people for what they’re already getting for free,” says Barrett. “This is just taxation of a basic, universal service that already exists, for the benefit a distant power that actively harasses the people being taxed without offering them any meaningful representation.”
Warner Music is an Akamai client, and we have heard from one source that they “leaned on” Akamai following Barrett’s statements, and threatened to terminate their business relationship.
We’ve confirmed that Barrett has been terminated, but we have not yet had a chance to speak to him or Akamai about the details of the termination. The timing is certainly suspicious though, to say the least.
Barrett joined Akamai last year as part of the acquisition of Red Swoosh.
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