With the European Union announcing that it will launch an inquiry — a step below a formal observation — into Google’s ad-sharing deal with Yahoo, the open question is whether the arrangement would in fact be anticompetitive.

Even though the ads will be shared only on Yahoo’s U.S. and Canadian sites, the EU believes that considering the companies operate in Europe, the deal will impact European consumers. Google had hoped to avoid EU scrutiny by excluding Yahoo’s European sites

Now that the game is on in the EU, Google is taking its case to the court of public opinion. Tuesday Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist, lashed out at a July report by SearchIgnite, which predicted that keyword advertising rates would jump 22 percent as a outcome of a Google-Yahoo deal.

Tail, Head, grade Terms

SearchIgnite broke its study into three kinds of keywords: “tail” terms, which […]

Orginal post by dhiram