Google and Yahoo! Talk Volume Caps with Justice Department

Google and Yahoo! are in the middle of trying to convince the federal government (namely the Justice Department) that their search advertising deal is not an antitrust issue. This has been going on for months as they've launched a website completely dedicated to According to the Wall Street Journal:

In the settlement talks with the government, both companies have discussed concessions. These include capping the volume of Google ads Yahoo would use, assurances that Yahoo would continue to compete in search ads, and a reporting mechanism to ensure compliance, people close to the talks said. U.S. officials hope to impose measures that will ensure that prices advertisers must pay don't rise significantly after the deal...

Reworking the deal to include a reporting mechanism could require the companies to disclose more about the mechanics of their closely-guarded search-advertising technology than they want to. And caps on how many Google-sold ads Yahoo can display could limit Yahoo's financial gains from the agreement.

Keep in mind, these are just discussions at this point, but they've still got people talking, and there are mixed feelings about these new possibilities for the deal. "Let’s put the price constraints aside, which are always a bad idea because they disrupt supply/demand equilibrium and generally screw up markets,"
I don't know how thrilled Yahoo! would be with the caps, considering they're planning to take all the money they make from this and invest it in their own search business, which is well behind Google in terms of market share.  But, that's negotiation. It's all about compromise. We'll see what happens.