Google Inc.’s chief executive said Wednesday the Internet search leader won’t delay its proposed advertising partnership with rival Yahoo Inc. even if government regulators need more time to assess whether the alliance will diminish competition.
After voluntarily delaying the start of the Yahoo deal three months ago to give antitrust regulators time to review the potential impact, CEO Eric Schmidt said he isn’t willing to wait very much beyond an Oct. 11 deadline spelled out in the companies’ contract.
“Time is money in our business,” Schmidt told reporters in a 75-minute meeting that covered a wide range of topics.
He declined to predict whether regulators might try to block the partnership.
“While we have been talking to regulators, we don’t know what their position is,” Schmidt said. “We don’t know if they think it’s a good deal or poor deal.”
The pact between Google and Yahoo raised competitive concerns because the two companies combined control more than 80 percent of the rapidly growing U.S. market for advertising connected to Internet searches.
Microsoft Corp. and a large group of advertisers have complained that Google will gain too much pricing power by linking up with Yahoo — an assertion Google disputes because its rates are set in an auction-style process. Yahoo also has the right to pick which Google ads to show on its site.
Antitrust regulators are nevertheless taking a hard look at the partnership, and recently hired an outside lawyer to help review evidence in the case so far.
Schmidt blamed the backlash against the Yahoo partnership on Microsoft’s lobbying and Google’s own inability to explain the benefits more clearly. “There is a natural fear of things getting larger,” he said.
By forging the partnership, Google provided Yahoo an escape from Microsoft, which spent five months trying to buy Yahoo in its entirety or at least its online search…