"MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Google Inc.'s top executives expressed hope Thursday that the Internet search leader will be able to form a potentially lucrative advertising partnership with Yahoo Inc. -- a deal that would lower the odds of Microsoft Corp. renewing its attempts to buy Yahoo.
"We have been talking to Yahoo and we are very excited to be working with them," Google co-founder Sergey Brin told reporters before the company's annual shareholders meeting. "We share a lot of values with them."
Neither Brin nor Google Chairman Eric Schmidt would indicate how far along the two sides are in their negotiations after a two-week test was completed last month. During the trial run, Google supplied a small portion of the text-based ads that appeared alongside the search results on Yahoo's Web site.
Because Google's technology proved it could select more profitable ads, the alliance could help Yahoo snap out of a prolonged slump that made it vulnerable to Microsoft's unsolicited buyout bid. Microsoft orally raised the bid to $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, before pulling it off the table last weekend.
Microsoft cited Yahoo's willingness to subordinate its own ad system to Google's as a major reason for dropping its bid."
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