After all the investor hubbub over the oh-no-they-didn’t deal between Yahoo and Microsoft starts to die down a bit, the pair are now embarking on the path that is the only way toward proving the efficacy of them joining together.

That would be getting a variety of state, federal and international regulators to say yes to the wide-ranging online advertising and search arrangement they announced last week so they can start making it work.

According to sources at both companies, a variety of filings will be made this week, including one to the Securities and Exchange Commission that should provide more details of the partnership.

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Yesterday, BoomTown went to Washington, D.C. to see lawyers from Microsoft, Yahoo and Google face off in Senate hearings about the controversial search advertising outsourcing deal recently struck between Yahoo and Google.

Here’s a video of BoomTown chatting up Google’s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond, Microsoft’s General Counsel Brad Smith and Michael Callahan, general counsel for Yahoo, right after the Senate hearings were over.

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Sitting at the Senate hearings about the Yahoo-Google ad search deal this morning in Washington, D.C., let it first be said that BoomTown is deeply dubious of whether that it is a good thing for consumers and advertisers, as both Internet companies have asserted.

But this was my most certain conclusion:

The worst case scenario is actually for politicians to meddle in the Internet space with their largely Web-ignorant mitts.

But that’s just me!

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Today, BoomTown boards the Acela Express from New York’s Penn Station to D.C.’s Union Station to attend the Senate hearing on the Yahoo agreement with Google to outsource some of its ad search business.

Titled rather ominously, “The Google-Yahoo Agreement and the Future of Internet Advertising,” the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights (eek!) will hear testimony at 10:30 a.m. at the Dirksen Senate Office Building from a passel of Internet reps, including those from Yahoo, Microsoft and Google.

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Drummond wrote: Yahoo! and the future of the Internet
2/03/2008 11:45:00 AM
Posted by David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer

Translation: Please excuse the extreme tone of self-righteousness tinged by the sweet, sweet irony of this egregious attempt by the most powerful Internet company ever to play victim, which is only possible when our foe is the Death Star from Redmond.

Sergey and Larry totally foisted the brass knuckles on me, since they had to go kite surfing in Mauritius. Also, I am posting this on Super Bowl Sunday, as a form of geekish counter-programming. Lastly, I am not implying here that Yahoo is the future of the Internet. We are, obviously, but its distress will work well for our self-interested purposes.

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