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Yahoo executives want to let Google serve ads next to its search results. But that would mean Google would be selling ads on 80 percent of all search queries online. Microsoft won't let that happen without stirring up antitrust fears in Washington. Secret Google sources tell the New York Times they plan to get around these concerns by schooling regulators on the concept of "co-opetition," which they say what Toyota does when it sells hybrid engines to GM, or when Whirlpool makes appliances for Sears.

Problem is, Toyota doesn't already own 61 percent of the car market. And even in its heyday, the Sears Catalog was never a portal to all the world's information the way Google search now is. Last time Google had antitrust trouble — with its DoubleClick purchase — Larry and Sergey paid for regulators to take a relaxing weekend in Colorado. Why don't they just spring for another junket? That seems easier.