Yahoogle Deal to be Called Off?

The last few months have been a long and bumpy road for Yahoo ! and Google. The two companies announced in April that they would collaborate on an advertising deal that would see a strong partnership develop between the two top search engines in the industry.

The deal has come under fire from nearly every direction. If it wasn’t the Department of Justice or EU regulators (whom the deal would not even affect), it was Californian members of the House of Representatives or scores of advertisers.

Given the fact that both Yahoo ! and Google have given the Department of Justice two extensions to carry out its investigation into whether or not the deal presents anti-trust issues, it’s fairly safe to assume that the two companies are pretty sick of waiting to roll out this deal.

Originally meant to kick off in early October, Google had said from the start that without or without word from the Department of Justice, the two would go ahead with the deal as planned in October. Obviously, this is not the way events transpired and now media reports say the company could be ready to walk away from the deal.

Kara Swisher, All Things Digital, speculates that Google would rather walk away from the deal than accept any caps or changes the Department of Justice would want to make to the deal. Swisher says that while it would be virtually impossible for Yahoo ! to call it quits on the deal, the Mountain View company could easily decide it’s not worth it.

This is reinforced by the fact that Google CEO, Eric Schmidt said previously that the deal was specifically designed to meet government needs. The two companies reportedly spent a considerable amount of time drawing up a deal that wouldn’t step on regulators toes and if this is true, Yahoo ! and Google have likely tailored the deal as best they can without compromising the results of the deal for themselves.