Google Calls Time on Yahoo Ad Deal

It's been called the corporate equivalent of dumping a lover by text. Google's David Drummond, senior vice-president for corporate development and chief legal officer, has ended its advertising deal with Yahoo! -- supposedly via its official blog.

Citing a potentially "protracted legal battle" with regulators as one reason for ending the partnership, and the danger of damaging relationships with other partners as another, Google's backed away from its alliance. Yahoo! may now look to Microsoft for salvation, with CEO Jerry Yang claiming he's open-minded about doing a deal with the software giant.

A couple of questions raised in the aftermath of the announcement:

Could Google have planned it any better? As The Conglomerate observes, the Yahoo! deal thwarted the threat of competition from Microsoft and now leaves "two wounded and frustrated competitors in the resulting rubble".

And did the company really dump its partner by blog?