Yahoo And Google Revise Deal To Try To Win Antitrust Approval
from the bargaining dept
With Yahoo and Google in the midst of a vast negotiation with the Justice Department to try to avoid an antitrust lawsuit over their proposed ad deal -- even to the point of Google threatening to back out entirely -- it shouldn't come as a surprise that they're going to propose various modifications to the deal.The news today is leaking that the two companies are proposing a greatly scaled back version of the deal to see if it passes Justice Department muster. In this case, the deal would be shortened from 10 years to just two, and would limit how much revenue it could represent to Yahoo while also allowing any advertiser to opt out of the deal. We're still waiting for a clear explanation of how this deal will actually negatively impact consumers, but some people still insist it will. For those who believe so, let's ask a simple question: how is this any worse than Yahoo disappearing from the marketplace? Because if the company doesn't do something soon that may be what we're looking at.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: antitrust
Companies: google, justice department, yahoo
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
I was thinking about this for quite a while. The basic idea is that the lack of competition brings alot of problems. Indeed, this is something we can agree upon. Even though for now the Google ad-system is based upon the market, this might change once the merge is complete. After all 90% share of something is alot of power and abusing it is just one step away.
I should agree, that if Yahoo is to go bancrupt, then even a greater problem will arise. A merger might not be the best step, yet in this case it might be (is) the only possible one.
Cheers,
Orlin
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Really
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Really
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Really
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Really
You really need to get out more.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hmmm...
(Have two old, (and therefore well connected and used), email addresses with yahoo...).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]