Google conducted 59.8% of all U.S. searches last month while Yahoo had 21.3%, according to research firm ComScore Inc. When they announced their test, Microsoft complained that any "definitive agreement" between Google and Yahoo would make the search advertising market "far less competitive."
"It's easy to see how there would be antitrust questions about something like that," said Gary Reback, an antitrust attorney who persuaded the Justice Department to pursue its landmark antitrust case against Microsoft in the 1990s. "On the other hand, are those bigger than having Microsoft acquire Yahoo?"
When the software giant made its unsolicited bid for Yahoo in February, the department said it would review the deal if it was completed.
Robert E. Litan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an antitrust official in the Clinton administration, said the Justice Department might be looking into the possible implications of a long-term collaboration between Google and Yahoo. An investigation into a short-term arrangement is unusual, he said, but the length does not matter under antitrust law.
"If two people or three people get in a room and just temporarily price-fix . . . that would be against the law," he said. "There's no immunity just because it's a short-term deal."
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jim.puzzanghera @latimes.com
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joseph.menn@latimes.com
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Puzzanghera reported from Washington and Menn from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Jessica Guynn in San Francisco contributed to this report.
