The other day, Eric Schmidt blamed Microsoft for fanning the flames of controversy over Google’s proposed advertising deal with Yahoo!. He did also note, however, that Google had probably failed to explain the deal well enough, and that this had contributed to said controversy as well.

A couple weeks ago, Google said it would go forward with its proposed deal with Yahoo!, which would see Google supplying ads to Yahoo!, if the U.S. Department of Justice had not yet blocked them from doing so. In other words, they aren’t gong to wait for an investigation to play out before they begin.

Joanne Bradford has made a lot of career moves in recent memory. She was once Corporate VP of Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions, then climbed up the ladder to Chief Media Officer and Corporate Vice President of MSN.

Google is apparently going to disregard the investigation into any antitrust practices, and move forward in its advertising deal with Yahoo! in October, unless the government stops them.

Let’s leave Microsoft out of this and just assume their antitrust complaints to Congress are self-servingly suspect and hypocritical—after all, Yahoo acquisition timing aside, how does a company that has controlled the computer and browser market for decades suddenly earn sympathy when they can’t compete in another market?

Search advertising by Google, search results by Yahoo, and a lot of scrutiny at the federal level received another layer of interest, this time from state governments.

Antitrust regulators will take a closer look at the potential implications of an advertising deal made by Google and Yahoo last month.

The U.S. government has taken a few looks; the European Union more or less threw several fits.  It wouldn’t be surprising if China also raised antitrust issues with Microsoft, then, and there’s something of an argument taking place over whether this will happen.

Multiple listings services and their handling by realtors led the Department of Justice to challenge the National Association of Realtors, leading to a settlement after nearly 4 years of legal back-and-forth.

The potential deals to place Google’s ads on Yahoo’s search results beyond a previous test already garnered opposition from a motley crew of groups.

Google and Yahoo prefaced their two-week test of Google’s AdSense for Search in Yahoo’s search results by chatting with antitrust regulators at the Justice Department.

When Microsoft announced last week a new openness philosophy, the first thought that came to mind was, “Well, that’s a switch!.” Considering they’d been fighting tooth and nail against open source competitors for years – I seem to remember Steve Ballmer paying personal visits to mayors in France and Germany to talk them out of Linux – opening up everything to developers was a surprising move.

"Ouch" doesn’t quite cover it.  The European Commission has fined Microsoft $1.35 billion (in addition to previous penalties) for not abiding by a 2004 antitrust ruling.

One publication opined Microsoft’s offer for Yahoo may be a way to draw Google’s business to the attention of antitrust authorities.

Criticism of the proposed $44.6 billion cash & stock takeover of Yahoo by Microsoft has elicited negative comments from some industry observers.

No matter how well-behaved they are, it’s a rare person (or company) who enjoys being constantly monitored.  Here’s the bad news for Microsoft, then: a judge has extended antitrust oversight of the corporation through late 2009.

The EU will open a pair of investigations into Microsoft, focusing on their two big businesses: Windows operating systems and the Office productivity suite.

The semi-dormant spat between Intel and AMD over Intel’s business practices heated up with a broad subpoena hitting Intel’s offices, courtesy of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

The demand for the FTC chair to recuse herself from the Google and DoubleClick antitrust review yielded a surprising little twist.

Oslo-based software maker Opera has formally complained to the European Union about Microsoft’s business practices.

DC lawmakers want the Federal Trade Commission to do more than rubber-stamp Google’s $3.1 billion DoubleClick acquisition.