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Following the announcement Google and Yahoo made back in
June that they signed a non-exclusive advertising agreement through which the
latter was going to advertise using the former’s ad system, more than a few
eyebrows have been raised.
Among them were those of U.S.
and E.U. anti-trust regulators, who have started investigations. Google,
however, is defending what some would consider an unholy alliance that would
bring about the end of competitiveness in the field of online advertising.
Google says it’s not quite so.
Following an anti-trust investigation started by the
European Union this week, which was itself preceded by a U.S. Department of
Justice investigation headed by renowned anti-trust litigator Sandy Litvack,
Google is preparing its own response.
Google has made two posts on Thursday and Friday
respectively on its policy blog, according to which the Google-Yahoo ad deal is
neither bad for competition, nor is it going to raise ad prices in the
industry.
The blog posts were not the only move they made however, as
Google Chief Executive Erick Schmidt declared during a press conference on
Wednesday that unless challenged by regulators, they will proceed with the deal
as soon as possible (reportedly in mid-October), as "Time is money in our
business," said Schmidt.
It is unknown what the companies’ stand will be if
regulators do decide to prosecute or
file an injunction against the deal.
According to a statement by Google, "When we announced
our deal with Yahoo we agreed to give the Department of Justice several months
to review the deal before we began implementing it, and we continue to
cooperate with regulators as that process continues. Ultimately we have
confidence that they'll be able to conduct their review within that time period
and allow us to move forward."
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