• Reuters, Wednesday, April 18, 2007 11 AM

Poor first-quarter results and speculation over his future had Yahoo CEO Terry Semel firing shots at rival Google over its pending acquisition of DoubleClick. He said the search giant could see an advertiser exodus from DoubleClick as publishers become weary of partnering with a company it competes with for eyeballs and advertising dollars. He added that DoubleClick's publisher-agnostic approach was one of its most compelling attributes that would be lost after becoming part of Google.

However, the Yahoo chief doesn't think antitrust regulators should stop the takeover. Earlier this week, Microsoft Corp. and AT&T, Inc. said a Google-DoubleClick union created an unfair monopoly in Internet advertising. "I understand their concerns, for sure," Semel said.

During Yahoo's disappointing earnings call, Semel told analysts he welcomed the competition brought on by a Google-DoubleClick merger. "It's a good validation of our strategy for the last few years. We ... are happy to see others now finally coming to that table." About half of Yahoo's $1.6 billion quarterly revenue comes from display advertising, although, unlike many big publishers, Yahoo does not partner with DoubleClick for ad-management. Time Warner's AOL, on the other hand, is one of the ad-serving giant's biggest customers.

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