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Yahoo seems to have everything going against it for one reason or another. Be it the chaotic deal with Microsoft that meets no ends or dogfights between Jerry Yang and Icahn. Things appeared to have taken a calm ride after the shareholders meeting last month but reports of stocks crashing and hitting a record low, Yahoo gets another blow on its last hope of revival; opposition to the Yahoo-Google Search deal by Association of National Advertisers as reported by Dawn Kawamoto.
The ANA sent a letter to the U.S department of justice pointing at its disagreement upon the deal between Yahoo and Google, terming it to be controversial and highly disrupting the ad market. They stated:
The letter, authorized by the ANA board, notes that a Google-Yahoo partnership will control 90 percent of search advertising inventory and states ANA’s concerns that the partnership will likely diminish competition, increase concentration of market power, limit choices currently available and potentially raise prices to advertisers for high quality, affordable search and advertising.
There is a mixed response to this deal that has been tipped to bring in Yahoo around $800 million in the first year of the deal and to boost the cash flow around $250 to $450 million; upon its proposal. The deal would have Google running its ads n Yahoo search pages where Yahoo has no ads, when the proposal was made, but later added the idea of putting up Google ads on pages where Yahoo had its own ads as well. But all this appears to be a big dream Yahoo looks forward to become a reality given all the controversies and problems.
The only issue of concern that was first cried over by Microsoft is that the duo would control around 90% of the market if the deal is to shape up; something Microsoft can’t swallow and goes as far as calling it unhealthy. Why would the combining of two parties be harmful for the ad market? The only reason I see is that competitors are afraid of losing their chances of winning ad deals (remember Yahoo is still the most visited page on web and Google the giant in search). Yahoo itself appeared disappointed with ANA’s dissatisfaction and mentioned:
We are disappointed with the ANA Board’s position regarding Yahoo’s non-exclusive search marketing agreement with Google. Yahoo! remains steadfast in its belief that this deal–in which prices are determined by advertiser demand-driven auctions, and not by collaboration between Yahoo! and Google–will strengthen Yahoo!’s competitive position in online advertising and will help to drive a more robust, higher quality Yahoo! marketplace for our advertisers.
