Academic

We spent a good chunk of the summer following Microsoft's attempt to court Yahoo! In the end, Microsoft was driven away, in part because Yahoo! gave its heart to another suitor, Google. Now comes word that Google has dumped Yahoo!, ostensibly because of antitrust problems and complaints from customers.

Google's Chief Legal Officer David Drummond said that abandoning the alliance wasn't "legally necessary" but "the right thing to do because Google and Yahoo have been successful in online advertising and we realized that any cooperation between us would attract attention."

Do you get the feeling that this result is just fine with Google? The proposed deal with Yahoo! staved off an immediate competitive threat from Microsoft and left two wounded and frustrated competitors in the resulting rubble.

Now, if Google actually planned all of this, that would be really impressive.