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 on Sunday condemning an
advertising deal between Internet giants Yahoo! Inc. and Google Inc. Google already has about 70% of the search ad market. A concentration of power diminishing competition and raising prices is at the center of most arguments against the deal.
Yahoo! says advertisers shouldn't worry. It argues that prices are determined by demand-driven auctions, and not by collaboration between Yahoo! and Google, according to The Wall Street Journal. The article cited people close to the matter as saying the Justice Department, which doesn't comment on pending reviews, is gathering depositions and evidence that could be used
to block the deal if a decision were made to do so. Google co-founder Larry Page, speaking at the New American Foundation think tank earlier this year, said antitrust issues won't derail the ad deal because there are different ways to structure it.
Like Google, Yahoo! (whose stock price is near a
five-year low) is also positioning itself for mobile search growth. Expanding on an earlier strategic alliance, AT&T Inc. and Yahoo! said beginning Monday
Yahoo! oneSearchTM is powering mobile Internet searches made through AT&T's on-deck Media Net portal. AT&T is the first U.S. carrier to integrate Yahoo!'s innovative mobile search service directly into their portal. Two weeks ago, a Journal article said following a recent Sprint Nextel Corp.-Google mobile Web search deal, Verizon Communications Inc. is
nearing an agreement with Google on a wide-ranging partnership, including making Google the default search provider on Verizon devices. -
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