...are discussing include a nonexclusive arrangement that they believe could satisfy regulators, say the people familiar with the matter.

The basis of such an arrangement would be a real-time auction system that would choose the most lucrative ads for any given consumer query from among those sold by Yahoo, Google and any of their competitors, the people say. Microsoft, for example, could potentially connect to the Yahoo system and have search ads it sold displayed alongside Yahoo Web search results, under an arrangement where they likely would share ad revenue.

It is easy to claim to be in support of open standards with a propriety closed-box system after you already own monopoly marketshare. Unfortunately for Yahoo! this short term revenue boost puts them in the same risk category as the common webmaster - Google is Venice; Webmasters are Constantinople.

Will the TV networks allow Google to do the same to their ad marketplace?

In a recent interview Eric Schmidt said

We're really focused on this huge opportunity before us, which is automating the trillion-dollar industry that is advertising. We won't get all of that, for sure, but we should be able to get a significant part of that over the lifetime, certainly of my service to the company.

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