Big Advertisers Oppose Google-Yahoo Deal...

Advertisers had been grumbling about the proposed Google-Yahoo search deal since it was announced, and that grumbling just got a little louder. On Sunday, the Association of National Advertisers, a giant trade group, said it objected to the deal.

The A.N.A. said it had sent a letter to the Department of Justice outlining its complaints. It “states A.N.A.’s concerns that the partnership will likely diminish competition, increase concentration of market power, limit choices currently available and potentially raise prices to advertisers for high quality, affordable search advertising,” according to the group. The A.N.A. represents about 400 companies with 9,000 brands.

Advertisers are concerned that with Yahoo offloading searches to Google, Google will control almost all of the search market prices will go up. Microsoft, which wanted Yahoo for its own, is another vocal critic of the deal. Microsoft arguments, like the advertisers, is focusing on the potential for monopoly.

Google, though, has said it is still planning for the agreement to begin in October and that it does not know where it stands with regulators. “We are in the process of talking to the government,” Google chief executive Eric Schmidt told Bloomberg Television. “They’ve not indicated one way or the other how they’re dealing with us.”