Google and Yahoo are delaying implementation of their search deal until the Justice Department completes its review, according to Bloomberg News.
The short item says that a person close to the deal told Bloomberg that Google and the Justice Department reached the agreement at a meeting today. The story also says there is no date set for the probe to conclude.
UPDATE: The Washington Post is also quoting an unnamed source that claims Google will delay the deal until the DoJ finishes its inquiry:
This is in sharp contrast to Google's earlier statements boasting that the company would begin serving ads to Yahoo's pages next week regardless of what happens with the Congressional investigation.
The non-exclusive deal will not combine the companies’ ad inventory, but allow Google to serve up contextual ads from a limited Yahoo inventory.
Yahoo is also free to strike similar deals with other companies, details that both companies have used as a defense against monopoly allegations.
Google has stated that it would postpone the deal for four months to allow the DoJ to investigate its June partnership, but did not think that anything about the non-exclusive partnership would violate antitrust regulations and planned to move forward with the deal after the four months were up.
In September, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt reiterated the point, telling reporters that the companies would move forward with implementation by October 11 no matter what happened with the investigation.
''To delay any longer would be to lose money, time is money in our business'' he said.
If Google and Yahoo have agreed to postpone implementation until DoJ makes a decision, it would be a huge shift in approach for the companies.
"It would have been awkward for the deal to move forward without the DoJ ruling," says Bob Liodice, President and CEO of the Association of National Advertisers. "Google needs to be candid about the nature of the deal so we can learn whether this is antitrust behavior."
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