9. WideVine Tech
Price: $150 million
Announced: December 2010
FTC Approval: No approval required
WideVine was a video optimizer and one of the last major independent digital rights managers. Fortune's own Dan Primack reported in February that the company had seriously overpaid given an internal valuation of between $30 or $40 million, according to a WideVine investor. (Google said it could not confirm numbers on acquisitions for which it has not publicly released details.)
Whatever the price, industry experts saw the purchase of WideVine as part of the company's continued investment in Google TV since the DRM tech acquired through WideVine could assuage future licensing concerns over the service. As an anti-piracy stalwart, WideVine's DRM operations also open up the potential for premium (read: paid) content on YouTube. As with On2, one acquisition fed directly into another.
