Google Criticizes Microsoft-Yahoo Deal
 

Monday, February 04, 2008 7:45:50 AM
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE

"Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC?" Drummond wrote.

Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said preventing Microsoft from buying Yahoo would undermine competition by allowing Google to become even more dominant than it already is on the Internet

"Microsoft is committed to openness, innovation, and the protection of privacy on the Internet," Smith said. "We believe that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo will advance these goals."

If they get together, Microsoft and Yahoo would have about 16 percent of the worldwide Internet
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search market -- still far behind Google's 62 percent share, according to comScore Media Metrix. But Microsoft and Yahoo already are far bigger in than Google in e-mail and instant messaging, and conceivably would be in a better position to squash rival services if they combined.

Illustrating the enormous stakes involved in a deal that could reshape the technology and media industries, Google and Microsoft are already debating the pros and cons before Yahoo has responded to the offer.

In its Web site posting, Yahoo has said its review of the proposal "will include evaluating all of the company's strategic alternatives, including maintaining Yahoo as an independent company."

Most analysts believe Yahoo will have little choice but to sell to Microsoft, with its stock price near a four-year low at the time of the bid and its profits falling since late 2006. When it was first announced, Microsoft's offer was 62 percent above Yahoo's market value -- a premium analysts doubt any other suitor will be able to top.

If Yahoo accepts, antitrust regulators in both the United States and Europe are expected to begin an exhaustive review that some experts think could last a year. Microsoft believes it could get the necessary approvals to take over Yahoo late this year.

If nothing else, Google probably will try to raise enough alarms about the Microsoft-Yahoo deal to delay its approval for as long as possible. By doing so, Google would have more time to draw up plans to counteract the combination.

Google also is borrowing a page from Microsoft's book by urging antitrust regulators to take a hard look at the proposed marriage between its two rivals.

Just days after Google struck a $3.1 billion deal to buy online ad service DoubleClick Inc. last year, Microsoft began lobbying regulators to block the transaction. U.S. regulators blessed Google's DoubleClick acquisition late last year after an eight-month review, but the antitrust inquiry in Europe remains open.

Interesting stuff. Anything that is anti google I'm all for, whoever it may be. Even Satan.