Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Portfolio that owning Yahoo would give Microsoft too much control over instant messaging and email. That power, he said "could be used essentially to break the Internet and diminish choice." Google's dominance in search and entry into display advertising with DoubleClick, however, doesn't "have much to do with that argument."

We decided that we wanted to work in this new space called display advertising, where we are not the leader — the leader is Yahoo. That's not the same thing as text ads, which is our primary business.

If Schmidt were the least bit genuine, he'd note that email and IM are not the same thing as enterprise software, which is Microsoft's primary business.

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