Ask The Business Lawyer

When two behemoths collide in a strategic alliance, the Department of Justice starts to sweat.  That's because it's in change of ensuring that the alliance doesn't violate the antitrust laws.  So when Yahoo and Google announced a formal advertising partnership last month, the DOJ pricked up its ears are started sniffing around.  According to a report on NewsClick, the DOJ has opened a formal "probe" into the situation.

The antitrust laws have a long history, extending back to the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.  At that time, Congress was concerned about the power that companies would have over the means of production and the distribution of their fruits.  It was opposed to the concentration of economic power in large corporations and in combinations of business concerns, believing that no one company should become too big to be able to have a monopoly and effectively thwart competition.

The Yahoo-Google investigation is but one of many high-profile cases that have raised the hackles of the DOJ.  For a fascinating lesson about U.S. trsdut-busting activities, click on this BBC report.