Google announced yesterday that their acquisition of DoubleClick/Performics had wrapped up this week.

There had been a ton of concern in the affiliate industry on what the implications of this could be.   How could Google operate both an SEO business, a Search Engine and an affiliate network.   That is a lot of information being controlled by one company and a lot of potential for inpropriety and potential damage to affiliates, especially affiliates who use paid search.

One of the concerns I have heard voiced from affiliates on working with Performics in the past was that they operated as both affiliate network and affiliate program management company while at the same time making money on Paid Search arbitrage.   Essentially, affiliates were concerned that this allowed Performics to identify profitable keywords and phrases from the efforts of their affiliates then use that information for their own profit.   I don’t know that they ever did this, but many paid search affiliates had this fear in the back of their heads.

Now, Google has announced that it will be looking to sell Performics Search to a third party as they want to avoid the appearance of or actual conflict of interest.

I think this is great for affiliates as this concern should now fade away.

Any thoughts?

God Bless,

Wade