Google’s head has reiterated that the search giant will continue discussions with the US Department of Justice over its proposed deal with fellow online giant Yahoo.
Under the terms of the agreement, first mooted back in June, Yahoo would turn over some of its online advertising space for Google to sell.
Back in August, Google’s chief executive Eric Schmidt said that the company would move forward with the Yahoo search partnership in October, with or without approval from antitrust reviewers at the Justice Department.
But yesterday, comments made by Schmidt alluded to little movement. "We agreed to extend our discussions ... with the DOJ," he said yesterday when asked for an update on the Yahoo deal after he participated in an economic summit in Florida with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Schmidt was repeating a decision first announced on October 3 that it would not begin sharing advertising immediately in order to give the Justice Department time to assess it, said Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich in Washington.
"He was reiterating what we announced several weeks ago," he said.
The advertising deal is unpopular with some advertisers because Google and Yahoo dominate the US web search market. They fear their rates could go up.
Google's market share widened to 63 per cent in August, while Yahoo's dropped to 19.6 per cent and Microsoft’s slipped to 8.3 per cent, according to figures from comScore.
The deal to share advertising has been widely seen as an effort to help Yahoo fend off Microsoft by bringing Yahoo an additional $800 million in annual revenue.