Posted on September 18, 2008 at 9:23 AM
Filed under: Corporate Strategy | Growth Strategy | Joint Ventures and Alliances | Law | People | Trends
Tagged: Department of Justice , DOJ , Google , Sanford Litvack , World Association of Newspapers , Yahoo!

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It would seem the only ones in favor of a search advertising deal between Yahoo! Inc. and Google Inc. are the Internet giants themselves. And after voluntarily delaying the deal for several months for antitrust review by the Department of Justice, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said he isn't willing to wait very much beyond an Oct. 11 deadline spelled out in the companies' contract, reports the AP. Schmidt spoke to reporters at company headquarters in Silicon Valley. On his willingness to move ahead without approval, Schmidt added, "Time is money in our business."

The DOJ recently brought in veteran litigator Sanford Litvack to help review the deal that would give both companies about 80% of the lucrative Internet search market. Assistant Attorney General Litvack has been a vice chairman of Walt Disney Co. and a partner with Hogan & Hartson LLP.

Yahoo! went to Google in hopes of fending off a $47.5 billion bid from Microsoft Corp., which opposes the ad deal.  MSFT isn't alone. Last week, CD reported the Association of National Advertisers, a trade group that represents major companies such as Procter & Gamble Co., General Motors Corp. and Apple Inc., sent a letter to the Justice Department condemning the deal. And recently, Bizjournals.com reports that Paris-based World Association of Newspapers, which represents about 18,000 newspapers, said a deal between the two Internet giants would lower revenue for individual newspaper Web sites and cut costs of paid search ads. Yahoo! expects to reap $800 million a year from the deal.

In our previous post, we noted Google and Yahoo! are also positioning for mobile search growth in deals with AT&T Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. ComScore just reported Google is the leader in mobile search: For June, 20.8 million U.S. mobile subscribers and 4.5 million European mobile phone subscribers accessed search during the month, an increase of 68% and 38% from June 2007, respectively. - Baz Hiralal

Google CEO won't delay Yahoo deal any further
Advertisers oppose Yahoo!-Google alliance
Newspaper group adds opposition to Google-Yahoo deal

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