- Eric Schmidt on Government Scrutiny and Economic Recovery
- Schmidt on Social Media, Ads and Hulu
- Sun Valley on Social Media
- Eric Schmidt + Larry Page on Revolutionizing Computing
- WPP's Sir Martin Sorrell on the Ad Recession
- Twitter in the Sun Valley Spotlight
- Sun Valley Dealmaking Confab Kicks Off
- Making Money on Michael Jackson's Memorial
- Court Ruling Could Mean Trouble for TiVo
- Another Music Lawsuit, but with an Unexpected Target
More Videos
- Eric Schmidt on Government Scrutiny and Economic Recovery
- Schmidt on Social Media, Ads and Hulu
- Sun Valley on Social Media
- Eric Schmidt + Larry Page on Revolutionizing Computing
- WPP's Sir Martin Sorrell on the Ad Recession
- Twitter in the Sun Valley Spotlight
- Sun Valley Dealmaking Confab Kicks Off
- Making Money on Michael Jackson's Memorial
- Court Ruling Could Mean Trouble for TiVo
- Another Music Lawsuit, but with an Unexpected Target
|
CNBC'S MOST SHARED
- WPP's Sir Martin Sorrell on the Ad Recession
- Unemployed? Bored? Make Money Playing Beer Pong
- Social Networking's 'Naked' Truth
- Merrill's McCann Seen as UBS Wealth Frontrunner
- The View From Newark
- Preparing for Retirement
- Warren Buffett's Complete Sun Valley CNBC Interview - Transcript and Video
- Roginsky: No More Mr. Nice Guy
- Oil Price Dragging Market Lower
- Merrill's McCann Seen as UBS Wealth Frontrunner
- Bulls Get Summertime Blues, But It's Hot Fun for Bears
- As Banks Fail, Strong Institutions Become More Visible
- It's Not the Wealthy Who Are Leaving California: Study
- Atlantic City Takes Hit as Pennsylvania Casino Opens
- Recession Special: Steak for $5!
- Hedge Fund Sees Assets Frozen in Ponzi Case
- A Muscle Car to the Rescue for General Motors
- Derivatives Debate: Financial Nymphomania?
RSS FEED
Text Size 
 |
CNBC.com |
The Justice Department reportedly hired Sanford Litvack, a prominent anti-trust litigator to consult on its probe into Google[GOOG
Loading...
()
] and Yahoo's [YHOO
Loading...
()
]planned deal, a sign the government could be preparing to challenge the deal as anti-competitive. Litvack has quite the resume: he was the DOJ's antitrust chief under Jimmy Carter and Disney's former Vice Chairman. Most recently he was a partner at the law firm Hogan & Hartson, where he focused on antitrust and trade regulation cases, among other things. The DOJ won't comment on whether or not Litvack is now on their team, but he's now longer on Hogan & Hartson's website, and he's reportedly been asked to examine evidence on the Yahoo-Google deal.
That's not all, news of Litvack's hire follows a powerful advertising industry trade group coming out against the Yahoo Google deal. The Association of National Advertisers, which represents marketing powerhouses like General Motors,[GM
Loading...
()
] P&G,[PG
Loading...
()
] and Wal-Mart,[WMT
Loading...
()
] is appealing to the Justice Department to block this deal. I spoke to the president of the ANA, Bob Liocide, who pointed to the fact that a combined Yahoo-Google would influence over 90 percent of the search advertising market, which poses real concern to prices. Liodice says there's simply too great a risk that this deal would reduce competition and lead to higher prices and a lower return on investment to advertisers. This risk of course comes at a time when thanks to economic pressures, advertisers are pulling back their spend, and focusing much more on return on investment.
What happens now? Option one: the DOJ approves the deal and it goes forward as planned. Option two: the DOJ has some problems with the deal, approaches the two companies with their concerns, and they tweak the deal until a compromise is made. Or option three, the two companies proceed with their partnership without Justice Department approval, and then the government, if it has a problem with the deal, could potentially sue, as it did with the Microsoft anti-trust case.
Google and Yahoo say they see no problems with the deal. At the Allen & Co. conference in July Google CEO Eric Schmidt told me that because the Yahoo deal is for ads, and not search, and because it's non-exclusive, he doesn't foresee any anti-competitive issues.
The stakes are high, especially because this deal was used as a pawn in Microsoft's[MSFT
Loading...
()
] takeover play, so I'll be watching carefully to see how this works out.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes