It's Official: Anti-Trust Scrutiny of Yahoo/Google Deal is Underway

[Marcia]

From Reuters:

The U.S. Justice Department has opened a formal antitrust investigation into a deal between Google and Yahoo to share some advertising revenue, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

Investigators are planning to demand documents not only from Google and Yahoo, but also from other large companies in the Internet and media industries, the newspaper reported, citing sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Google-Yahoo deal subject of antitrust probe [reuters.com]

[Murdoch]

Well that's the most obvious news of the day :)

[qwik]

Very good news imo. In this case Yahoo needs to be saved from itself. And advertisers need to be saved from a Google that controls everything.

[maximillianos]

This is simply Microsoft throwing some money at politicians. Another wasted investment by MS... Maybe if they spent more time on their software, Vista might have had a chance.

[Lord Majestic]

This is simply Microsoft throwing some money at politicians.

I doubt it, this time Microsoft not even raises the issue too loudly because they know their concerns are shared by many entities. Yahoo/Google tie up is certainly anti-competitive - the whole point of it is for Google to minimise chance of increased competition in the marketplace if Microsoft takes over Yahoo - IMO, this should have been enough to prevent any possible tie ups.

[bwnbwn]

I don't think Microsoft has to do anything with this. Google controlling 65% or better of the market and Yahoo Controlling 25% of the market jeeze doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out this one.

Just to much control under one roof scares anybody into looking at this as a security issue and I really don't see the any Government allowing this to happen.

If I were Google I would be concerned with the Government stepping in and do to them what they did to Bell Telephone about 20 years ago. Total breakup and a divided up the company.

I don't think Bell thought it would or could happen to them but it did and this really is a scary thought but one that is a real possibility. If these other players can't step up and get into the fray then the % of this really happening continues to increase.

[chinara]

I don't think Microsoft has to do anything with this. Google controlling 65% or better of the market and Yahoo Controlling 25% of the market jeeze doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out this one.

Yeap.

Yahoo/google monopoly deal should not be allowed. I am glad the gov't stepping in here.

[mfishy]

Realistically Google will control about 90% of search ads. Seems a bit much.

[Commerce]

I am really glad to learn that folks are getting this in the US Justice Department.

Try to imagine a world where a single media company - say for example, News Corporation owned 90% of all broadcast and print outlets (I am not picking on News Corp, but they are a successful big media company for this example), - I think that such a reality would cause a huge outcry well before it reached anywhere near the 90% number.

If this is allowed to get through, perhaps there will be a new slogan at the big G plex:

"All your ad dollar are belong to us!"

-Commerce

[rise2it]

"And advertisers need to be saved from a Google that controls everything."

I see this attitude more and more in the webmaster community....seems like only about 5 years ago EVERYONE was singing Google's praises and cheering for them to take over the world.

[Searg]

Hello all....this really, really scares me. I have an account with both google and yahoo search marketing....I do amazingly well with yahoo and have NEVER had luck with adwords....NEVER. I spend a potload of money with yahoo (over 20k per month which is a lot for me) and about 1,000 with google and don't get *&^% for return...I'm just not a saavy adwords user.....My source at yahoo...which is a good one typically told me this was a VOLUNTARY review they initiated....so don't you think they have been assured in some way the deal will go through since it's voluntary....I PRAY IT DOESN"T

[skibum]

It's just for show. Watch this get the stamp of approval before the upcoming US elections. Maybe the EU will actually give it scrutinty and block it but I wouldn't expect the US to do anything.