The advertising deal sought by Google and Yahoo, and held up by regulators worldwide, is examined in today's New York Times and largely depicted as anything but harmful. The reason: Google isn't setting prices, it's waiting for advertisers to bid.
Read Techcrunch's Michael Arrington, meanwhile, and you get an entirely different picture. He sees third paries, including the big ones, as beholden to Google.
While the World Association of Newspapers decries the deal, the Newspaper Association of America has conspicuously not taken a position. Arguably the stakes here are huge, but at the moment there are few significant reasons emerging on why the arrangement can't take place ---- except the typical concerns of large companies joining forces in any way. Regulators are hinting there is trouble ahead, but no one is yet sending the two giants back to the drawing board.
