For what reason might Google and Yahoo have waited right up to the last minute? Was someone holding out for better terms, which would have made it worthwhile to go ahead, even faced with a long, drawn out legal wrangle with the government? Will the whole story ever surface? Let us know if you have any ideas about how this played out. Marlene
Previously appeared on Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Posted by Heather Havenstein
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9122498&intsrc=hm_list
(Computerworld)
Google Inc. called off its proposed search advertising deal with Yahoo Inc. just three hours before the U.S. Department of Justice was to file an antitrust complaint on Nov. 5 aimed at blocking it, according to the lawyer that the government hired to pursue the case.
In an interview with the legal blog AMLaw Daily published Dec. 2, Sandford Litvack -- the attorney who would have been the lead counsel on the antitrust case -- said that Google and Yahoo decided to abandon the proposed deal shortly after DOJ officials informed them of the agency's plans to file the antitrust complaint.
Shortly after the deal -- which would have had Yahoo running Google advertisements alongside its own search results -- was announced in June, Google and Yahoo came under fire from large advertiser groups, which charged that the arrangement would diminish competition and raise online advertising prices.
And an antitrust think tank said the partnership could end up as a "black hole that swallows up Yahoo," thus justifying an antitrust investigation.
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