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If Yahoo outsources search to Google, Microsoft will come screaming to antitrust regulators. How will Microsoft lawyers make their case? They'll let Yahoo docs do the talking. Before Yahoo was for outsourcing its search to Google, Yahoo was against outsourcing its search to Google. To explain why, Yahoo execs prepared a document for an all-hands meeting to be held on January 30. The document is part of the complaint a judge presiding over a shareholder suit against Yahoo released to the public yesterday. It reads:

Short-term analysis of the revenue potential of outsourcing monetization may not take into account the longer term impact on the competitive market if search becomes an effective monopoly.

Translation: Yahoo can't outsource its search to Google, because that would give Google a monopoly over search. It's as though Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wrote the words himself — which he did, four months later.