...it drives me crazy when they double-click everything, especially hyperlinks.

Google and it's founder and managers, like the notorious Limousine Liberal Stevie Jobs and Apple, are Lefties; so is it any surprise that these a-holes slurp up a company and layoff many of their hardworking original employees? NOT.

Hey Serg and crew ..... a-hole!

Frankly, the double clickers work for an annoying Adware company (oh sorry advertising serving company). The less of 'em the better!

Glad to see you're back from your vacation or was it you were busy casting your ISO yes ballots all over the world last weekend!!

If the 300 earn $100K on average, that's a mere 30 million a year. If they had invested their $3.1b at 5%instead of buying DoubleClick, they'd make $155 million a year. Saving this sort of money isn't going to turn it into a good deal.

Now he's into politics, not just Apple-bashing. Although, of course, there has to be a side-swipe at Apple, too.

The basic style is the same, though: Barely-coherent rantings "liberally" sprinkled with factoids and lies. And, I'll bet, a less-than-10% chance of actually replying to any criticisms.

The closest Trolls get to dialogue is "I'm gonna eat you if you try to cross this bridge!"

Reading this story, I think back to my pre-DSL dial-up days in a pre-Firefox +AdBlock world and the (limited) bandwidth and time that was wasted as DoubleClick served up shit I hadn't asked for and placed cookies I didn't want. "Waiting for blah.blah.doubleclick.com" was a more-or-less permanent fixture in my browser's status bar.

And I'm meant to feel sorry that some of those responsible are redundant? Sack the lot of them (and the rest of the time-wasting droids peddling online advertising).

I've no idea what problem you have with executives of large companies, but whatever else they may be google is a business and hiring and firing is just business as usual.

Also your rant is malformed, you ask a rhetorical question and then put 'NOT', at the end. Normally you either just put the rhetorical question, or make a (patently) untrue statement and then declare 'NOT'. The combination of both is just gibberish.

For example;

Is there any question that webster freaky is an idiot?

This is rhetorical, we all know the answer.

And

Webster freaky loves Macintosh... NOT.

Patently untrue, hence the emphasis giving 'NOT'.

I hope that helps you with future rants.

What a shame. I can't remember the exact quote, but I imagine the ghost of Bill Hicks will smile a little smile. If you work for Doubleclick, you make a pact with Satan to suck his you-know-what. I'm sure they will have no trouble getting jobs elsewhere, e.g. in retail.

"Webster Freaky you're an idiot" - weak, as well. Weak and impotent. He supposedly added The Register to his "corporate firewall" a couple of days ago in protest at some story about freetards. My guess is that his "corporate firewall" encompasses him and no-one else.

I thought the troll had to first make an identity check before his lunch arrangements were discussed. I don't think he used biometrics, although he may have used smell, before enquiring "Who's that trip trapping across my bridge?".

Back on topic, it may be a little unfair to express such glee about a load of people loosing their livelihoods, even if the company they work for is a pain in the backside.

Please god don't give him advice, as things stand I can read the first couple of words in something written by him or Man from Mars, recognise the style and skip onto the next possibly (I'm still holding out for one) worthwhile comment.

Please stop feeding the troll.

weren't you supposed to get him a red herring?

the one with the monkey on the back please

Only a madman could possibly describe multi-billionaire capitalist tycoon managers of an international megacorporation as "lefty". Webster, you obviously don't know what the word means. Go look in a dictionary sometime - I think you'll find the definition is not "Anyone who Webster doesn't like".

a curious thing: every time there is a Comments section available, in an article that is not ecstatic, glowing praise for Ballmer & Company, one can play "Where's Webster?", and usually find him very quickly (just follow the foaming, fluorescent-green spittle tracks).

pity. it would be nice if he was harder to find, like Waldo. at least amfM is psychedelic, and thereby entertaining; Webster appears to be merely psychotic.

as for the takeover layoffs, if i had a dime for every time someone was let go after a corporate buyout or merger, i would be as wealthy as BillG. headcount cost reduction is SOP in IT, and in every other business i've ever heard of. in my opinion, this one barely merits a side note in another, more newsworthy story (say, one about the periodic Dell, HP or IBM redundancies, usually numbered in the thousands, usually related to earnings calls and not M&A activity).

The term "lose one's livelihood" is extremely hyperbolic when referring to job losses nowadays, at least in this sector. They've no more lost their livelihood then I have when I let a packet of mince go off and have to buy something else for my dinner.

Nice to see a thread where for once the prevailing consensus isn't that the purpose of a company is to employ as many people as it can possibly support without going bankrupt. Shame it seems to be entirely because of the nature of the company.

Dunno if the figures in the US match those in the UK, but the "cost" of employing someone is in excess of double their gross salary here.

E.g. if your quoted salary is $100K, the cost to the company of employing you is closer to $200K, which makes $60million. Still not as good as investing the whole lot, but that's a saving in addition to any income from the company....

Still not as good as your investment example - but I'm sure you can fill in the rest yourself (start with whatever profit its making, then factor in the increased market share, and keep going).