Google Boots IncrediMail; Stock Price Plummets

If you are a public company and rely on Google for a lot of your revenue, the last thing you want to hear is that your Adsense account has been “disabled.” But that is exactly what happened to Israel-based IncrediMail (MAIL), which saw its stock drop about over 40% when it announced that its advertising deal with Google had been terminated. The company was worth about $45 million on Nasdaq. Then, poof, 1/3 of that disappeared so quickly that the stock graph has a break in it from one day to the next.

No word on why this happened, although TechCrunch editor Ouriel Ohayon, based in Tel Aviv, is trying to reach the company for a comment. Whatever it is won’t be good news. If Google dropped them for fraud or other bad behavior, the other networks (namely Yahoo and Microsoft) likely won’t touch them, either.

This isn’t necessarily a warning not to tie your business to Google - many startups have no choice. But you better keep them happy if you want to avoid unhappy surprises like this one. Good luck, IncrediMail. You’ll likely need it.

Comments

[Phil G.:]

You can't make Google your Achilles Heel if you're a 'net startup. Make it something else. Similar thing happened to Answers.com recently, I believe.

2008 Jan 14 09:48 AM