Started in the late 1990s, Google grew rapidly to become one of the leading companies in
the world. Google’s mission is ’’to organize the world’s information and make it universally
accessible and useful.’’ It is operating on a simple but innovative businessmodel of attracting
Internet users to its free search services and earning revenue from targeted advertising. In
the winner-takes-all business of Internet search, Google has captured considerably more
market share than its next highest rival, Yahoo!. This has turned Google’s Web pages into
the Web’s most valuable real (virtual) estate. Through its two flagship programs, AdWords
and AdSense, Google has capitalized on this leadership position to capture the lion’s share
in advertisement spending. AdWords enables businesses to place ads on Google and its
network of publishing partners for as low as 25 cents per thousand impressions. On the other
hand, it uses AdSense to push advertisements on publishing partners’ Web sites targeting
specific audience and share ad revenue with the publishing partner. This creates a win–win
situation for both advertisers and publishers and developed Google into one giant sucking
machine for ad revenue.