WebProNews

If the company can get a commercial real estate service on board, it could display more detailed property images on Google Earth.

CoStar Group, the largest provider of commercial real estate data, has already licensed some content to Google. Now the company is chatting with Google and Yahoo about other deals, Mercury News reported.

While CoStar's content, created with teams of photographers and laser-equipped surveyors, would be a top-class addition to either search engine's map products, it's possible that content could lead to a big push into commercial classified advertising.

Businesses looking for specific square-footage and locations could get a list of those places via a search engine. Then there could be an option to visit them online, using CoStar's content to provide a virtual tour.

The search engine would make money from the classified advertising, and then possibly an additional fee to access the high-end CoStar information. CoStar sells its data for thousands of dollars to brokerage houses and corporate clients, so any deal would have to be equally lucrative.

One might wonder if the discussions between the company and the search engines may lead to CoStar being acquired instead, should either Yahoo or Google have a model in mind to monetize such a purchase.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.