YAHOO AND GOOGLE ABANDON AGREEMENT

On November 5, 2008, Yahoo! Inc. (“Yahoo!”) and Google Inc. (“Google”) ended their advertising agreement after the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) said that it would file an antitrust lawsuit to block the implementation of the agreement. According to the DOJ, both companies account for 90 percent of the Internet search advertising and Internet search syndication. As such, the agreement would harm competition in each of the relevant markets.
Allegedly, the agreement would have allowed Google to place it search result advertisements on Yahoo!’s search pages. After a lengthy investigation by the DOJ, it was ascertained that Google and Yahoo! would have become collaborators rather than competitors in the search advertising business.

Andre Barlow
(202) 589-1834
abarlow@dbmlawgroup.com