Yahoo deal lets Google sell ads all over the Web
Google and Yahoo have published a highly redacted version of their search-advertising deal. Even most of the definitions have been censored, making it hard to follow. But this much is clear: This is far more than the modest search-advertising deal Yahoo and Google executives have talked about. Buried in the legalese are frequent references to "AdSense for Content." AFC is Google's service for matching ads to the content of a webpage, rather than the keyword queries of a search. As I read it, this means the deal covers Google selling ads all over Yahoo — and beyond.The language appears to cover Yahoo-owned properties, and also Yahoo partners, though it provides for some tussling back and forth over which partners Google will allow its ads to appear on. Selling ads on Yahoo's partners, including its unwieldy but far-ranging newspaper consortium, means that Google will greatly extend its reach on the Web. What does this mean for the deal's chance of approval? It's at once good and bad, depending on how it's spun on Capitol Hill. A broader deal would seem more likely to be ruled anticompetitive. But Google's share of the total online-advertising market is much smaller than its share of the search-ads market, making a monopoly argument tougher for opponents of the deal — chiefly Microsoft — to make. The expanded deal also hints at Yahoo's desperation. In a mess of legalese, it has given away the store to Google. The search engine's executives quietly groused that a search deal would help Yahoo learn Google's tricks and catch up in profiting from users' search queries. With this broader deal, Google can do the same to Yahoo, learning about how best to place banners on Yahoo's network of content websites. It's a deal that is more likely to pass regulatory muster. But it utterly fails the smell test.