From the Los Angeles Times Technology Blog
September 16, 2008
Google's chief economist argues for Yahoo ad pact
By Jessica Guynn
Who better than Google's chief economist to defend the company's proposed search advertising partnership with Yahoo?
In a blog post on the company's website today, Hal Varian countered growing public criticism and antitrust scrutiny of the partnership by rejecting fears that it would increase the cost of search advertising. He also contended that the partnership would provide Yahoo with better advertising.
In particular, he took aim at a study released in July by SearchIgnite. It concluded that the cost of buying keywords on Yahoo would jump by an average of 22%. On the contrary, Varian argued, advertisers will get more bang for their buck. Google and Yahoo have been making a similar argument behind the scenes....
Varian is a professor of economics, information and business who's on leave from UC Berkeley. His academic gravitas comes in handy in sensitive situations. He also weighed in when Wall Street feared Google would suffer in the economic downturn.