Google emphasises Microsoft/Yahoo! fears

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt has reiterated company belief that a US$44.6 billion Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo! would be detrimental to growth of Internet services. “We would be concerned by any kind of acquisition of Yahoo! by Microsoft... We would hope that anything they did would be consistent with the openness of the Internet, but I doubt it would be,” he told reporters. “We are concerned that there are things Microsoft could do that would be bad for the Internet.”

Meanwhile Schmidt also predicted this week his company could weather any economic downturn because its advertisers are broad-based. "We believe that if there were [a US recession], we'll be well positioned,” he told reporters at a briefing during a visit to Sydney, Australia. “We're not particularly dependent on any particular one market. There's not a lot of advertising for any one market over another.”