Breaking away from elections and politics for a bit and moving to the more mainstream, Google has announced today that it is ending it’s advertising partnership with Yahoo to avoid a legal battle with federal antitrust regulators.  From the outside this sounds like a great thing for Google and another nail in the coffin for Yahoo’s long term prospects.

Yahoo stock was up considerably today as investors considered whether or not this would reopen discussions with Microsoft, which frankly seems like  amuch better fit, although I truly believe that even the merged companies would soon become a rounding error in Google’s advertising success.  As an advertiser, there are a lot of options out there, but very few offering the same CPC value as Google.  At this point Microsoft has declined to comment, although I suspect that their consideration for this deal is soured and any offer Yahoo receives from Microsoft will reflect a significantly reduced market value.