Yahoo, Google flirt with possible partnership
(Cay Compass)

Yahoo Inc. is surrendering some of its advertising space to Internet search leader Google Inc. in an unusual test that appears designed to frustrate Yahoo’s unsolicited suitor, Microsoft Corp.

The two–week experiment announced Wednesday will allow Google to show ads tied to about 3 percent of the queries made in the United States through Yahoo’s search engine – the Internet’s second largest after Google’s.

Together, Google and Yahoo control more than 80 percent of the U.S. search market, making it highly unlikely that antitrust regulators would allow the Silicon Valley rivals to form a long–term advertising alliance, analysts said.