After weeks of hearing about how the deal between Google and Yahoo might never be approved by the Justice Department, it never got a chance -- Google got cold feet and decided not to offer its own ads on Yahoo before getting a verdict.

I've been thinking the Justice Department shouldn't even be reviewing the deal, because it's not a merger agreement. Yet I also think the deal would not have been in the best interest of anybody but Google.

It had originally been structured as a 10-year deal in which Google ads would be seen throughout Yahoo pages. Seemed innocuous enough -- except that it would severely impact how many choices would be available for advertisers who want to reach vast numbers of consumers through search advertising. Not that the deal proposed by Microsoft would have been much better for advertisers. It still would have restricted advertiser choices.

I have great respect for the executives at all three companies -- and they are acting in the best interest of their stock-holders by trying to make these deals happen -- or at least trying to avoid deals between their biggest competitors. But I can't help but think about how the market forces would realign with any of these deals. As it is, most large advertisers think it is suicide to not use Google as an advertising engine. If the company's ads were sprinkled throughout Yahoo, it would make the case for Google advertising that much more compelling, and probably decrease the value of the Yahoo inventory of ads as advertisers choose Google as a way to get exposure to Yahoo visitors.

Google's management suggests pricing of ads on search engines is not a monopoly, and that it is being dictated by a free-market bidding system, so it would be optimized to cost less. However, all search ads are not created equal. Some keywords used in searches are much more valuable than others, and are being bid up every day, while other keywords languish as unpurchased -- and probably would continue to be unpopular as advertising terms -- even if Google ads showed up on Yahoo pages.

Currently, if a keyword is bid too high on Google, there's a chance you can purchase it elsewhere -- possibly for less -- because not all purchasers buy from all advertising providers. But if you move more of the inventory of keywords to a single source, the popular keywords are likely to become even more expensive -- and the unpopular keywords will remain unpopular.

You might think the current situation is a lot like network TV where three networks ruled national advertising for years. There are similarities, but it's different, because TV network popularity is based on entertainment value, which can go up and down from season to season. Internet utility from a search standpoint is less subject to public whims and likely to yield more consistent usage. Unless the incumbent severely decreases its utility, or another service leapfrogs it, users are unlikely to change their patterns -- certainly not from season to season. Besides, traditional TV networks were simultaneously dependent on local stations as partners -- and the Internet paradigm has no such dependencies.

Google and Yahoo had planned to win Justice approval in part by shortening the deal from 10 years to two years. But somebody must have recognized that having a monopoly for two years is not more acceptable than having it for 10. In two years, otherwise viable competitors could still be pushed out of a market.

So the deal looks like it won't happen -- at least not now. Business people will still have some choice when buying search advertising. The market wins.