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The deal comes as a boon to the equity investment firm which had purchased the once-colossus, later-troubled online ad broker for $1.1 billion two years ago. Microsoft was reportedly the first bidder, in a deal that analysts believed would only have been worth $2 billion – but just a few weeks ago, that seemed like a lot, perhaps even too much.

But what appeared to be silence to some observers may have been Microsoft quietly upping its counter-offer, maybe more than once, in a round of serve-and-volley with Google that the latter has clearly won.

In a very carefully worded comment late this afternoon, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, “DoubleClick's technology is widely adopted by leading advertisers, publishers and agencies, and the combination of the two companies will accelerate the adoption of Google's innovative advances in display advertising.” Schmidt doesn’t exactly say Google will utilize DoubleClick’s platform; in fact, he points to his own company’s “innovative advances,” which could conceivably replace DoubleClick’s without too much disturbance of its customer base.