Will Google or Yahoo announce an extension of their search ad deal before the end of May?

VentureBeat (http://tinyurl.com/5w4r2a) and Silicon Alley Insider (http://tinyurl.com/6dps8x) are both reporting that Google is thinking of walking away from their search advertising deal with Yahoo. The limited search partnership saw Google serving ads for a small percentage of Yahoo's search ad inventory. The deal was announced by Yahoo on April 9th and was planned to last 2 weeks (http://tinyurl.com/5k53zd).

The purpose of the partnership was to give Yahoo more leverage in getting a better deal out of Microsoft. That certainly worked with Microsoft upping its offer. But now the threat of a Microsoft takeover has receded, rumors are circulating that Google is cooling on extending the partnership. According to the WSJ Google execs are divided on how much they would like to screw their new best friend.

As Henry Blodget writes:
Google is now remembering that having 85% market share in a $20 billion global market probably isn't a winning strategy for keeping regulators happy. Far better to keep one foot on Yahoo's throat and the other on the defibrillator paddles, so you can always say, "See, we have a real live competitor here! It moved an hour ago. We swear!"