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"If for whatever reason the ad that monetizes the best is the Google ad, that is the one that will be shown," said Kevin Lee, CEO of search marketing agency Didit.com.

JP Morgan estimates that Google monetizes search queries at a rate 79 percent greater than Yahoo.

Google and Yahoo do not need government approval to start sharing ads. But they elected to put it on hold for three-and-a-half months to give the authorities at the Justice Department a chance to look it over.

Analysts at the firm Stifel Nicolaus believe that the flexible structuring of the deal will make it an easier sell to the DoJ, which has already been looking into the two-week limited trial the companies conducted in April.

Nevertheless, Stifel's Blair Levin said that it will take more than assurances from Google and Yahoo to convince regulators that the deal doesn't pose a substantial threat to competition.

In the respective conference calls announcing the deal, Levin said that the two companies did not adequately "answer the question why the efficiencies of the deal won't ultimately lead advertisers to move to Google, leaving Yahoo without a viable search advertising product and Google as the only search advertising game in town."

"The reaction of advertisers and publishers will thus be critical," he concluded.

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Mixed messages

Different search marketers of course have different answers.

SendTec's Landis warns that "prices could go through the roof." Oliver Bishop, CEO of the search marketing agency Steak, said the deal highlights Google's position as "the sole center of the digital ecosystem."

But Anvil's Lewis, though he admits that "more competition is better," argues that the search-advertising market is essentially self-regulatory.

"Search is a very results-driven industry. If you don't provide the results, you don't get the money," he said.

Asked what recourse an advertiser would have if he was unhappy with the cost and effectiveness of a Google campaign without a viable competitor, Lewis said he would take it up with Google.

"There would be an uproar," he said. "We have a lot of influence. We can talk to our account folks and literally change the course of the boat."

Apart from the DoJ's expected probing of industry insiders, there has been a din of unsolicited reaction from a wide range of concerned parties.

Herb Kohl, the Wisconsin Democrat who chairs the Senate Antitrust Committee, warned that the deal between "direct competitors for Internet advertising and search raises important competition concerns," and said that his committee would investigate.

Earlier today, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) sent a letter to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang asking for details about how the arrangement will be structured to protect competition. Like Kohl, Barton also expressed concerns about how consumer data will be stored and consumers' privacy protected.

Other groups that have spoken out against the deal on privacy and competitive grounds include NetCompetition.org, the Center for Digital Democracy and the American Consumer Institute. They're nothing if not colorful: those groups respectively referred to the partnership as a "cartel," a "digital combine" and a "monopoly."

The deal also came under fire from the Black Chamber of Commerce and the League of United Latin American Citizens, which both warned that the potential for higher prices would leave minorities at a disadvantage when marketing their businesses online.

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