Yahoo! and Microsoft have now received regulatory clearance

Have you read that Yahoo! and Microsoft have now received regulatory clearance to form a search alliance? This should be considered good news for PPC advertisers and publishers to see this deal getting closer to done. This alliance should provide publishers with:

1. Better Monetization - Since advertisers will have a bigger marketplace - estimates are up to 150 million searchers and an increase of 62% in search volume - than what they had with Yahoo! alone and a bigger marketplace means more focus/attention from more advertisers, and more advertisers means more competition, and more competition means higher CPCs and more coverage.
2. A Stronger Partnership (assuming you are a good publisher) - Since Yahoo! is putting a great deal of focus and resources into the success of this deal, it's important that it works and thus attention to their best publishers will be their focus.
3. More Rapid Innovation - Hopefully having Microsoft as the technology arm of this partnership will allow for innovation and even simple technological updates to happen much quicker. They will focus on technology and Yahoo! on sales and relationships. Dividing the two should create more of a focus and, who knows, maybe some cool innovation with the search products Yahoo! publishers experience today.
   

I think advertisers will get some major benefits from this partnership as well, and obviously the advertisers think so since The American Association of Advertising Agencies urged the U.S. Department of Justice to approve the deal saying that it enhances the search competition.