Google Negotiating With Justice Department 83
mikesd81 writes "Cnet reports that to avoid being sued by the US Justice Department, Google is negotiating with them. The Justice Department and a multistate task force are still reviewing the proposal to decide whether to oppose the partnership. Under the non-exclusive partnership Google would supply Yahoo with some search ads, a move that could increase Yahoo search revenue, but that also gives Google even more power in the market. Yahoo expects the 10-year deal to raise revenue by $800 million in its first year and to provide an extra $250 million to $450 million in incremental operating cash flow. Google's share of the US search market reached 71 percent in August, compared with Yahoo's 18.26, according to Hitwise's most recent numbers."
Re:I fail to see the problem... (Score:2, Informative)
Google's goal as a company is to index the world's information. I don't see how buying a competitor for their data is evil. They used no government coercion to do so. They played by market rules and bought them in a mutually cooperative deal. How is it any worse if Doubleclick has the data, or Google does?
If you don't like google, no one's forcing you to use their services.
The CIA? Are you serious?
Re:Er... did you read your linked article? (Score:3, Informative)
Nonetheless, anti-trust law says that someone who already has a large fraction of a market is not allowed to takeover another significant competitor. The principle is that a monopolist can crush competitors by sheer power: while you *can* go to other ad suppliers, if Google has a huge slice of the market, all the advertisers will go to Google and alternatives won't have the ads to place if web-site owners want them.