Plenty of bad blood has been stirred up by Microsoft’s heavy (and pretty effective) lobbying against the Yahoo/Google advertising alliance. The Yahoo/Google camp complains that Microsoft’s influence has been behind much of the chatter (both in the media and among trade associations representing advertisers and publishers) questioning whether the deal should be allowed to go ahead.
This just sounds like sour grapes. Microsoft tried to whip up a campaign like this against the Google/DoubleClick deal as well, but that effort singularly failed. There was simply no wider groundswell of anxiety about that deal. This time it’s different, and if Yahoo/Google hope to win the battle for hearts and minds they will have to do a much better job of explaining their case.
Google tries to do that today, with a new website laying out the arguments for the deal and highlighting favourable media and industry views. It is astonishingly late in the day to try this - the terms of the June agreement actually call for the advertising pact to be activated today (Thursday), though the companies have delayed until early October to buy more time. Regaining lost ground now will be hard. Mark one up for Microsoft’s slicker lobbying machine.
