Dumb, poorly-chosen acquisitions of tech companies by Google. Search giant Google.com tends to buy up a lot of smaller companies, particularly companies that have a lot of data and/or content that might be useful for those using the Google search engine. Recent examples include the purchase of ITA, a company collecting data and information about airline flights and travel, and Zagat Surveys, a publisher which famously aggregates restaurant and nightlife reviews.
Many times, Google purchases turn out to be forward-thinking, strategic moves. The purchase of Pyra Labs allowed Google to integrate with the Blogger platform. The Android platform - Google's open source mobile platform - was originally brought in to the company via acquisition. And perhaps most famously, Google bought out YouTube, the largest source for streaming Internet video in history.
But not all Google acquisitions have been winners. Here's a collection of the Worst Google Acquisitions. Buying these companies either proved to be unsuccessful or unproductive long-term, or perhaps was just a bad policy right from the very start.
