But Google only wants to give Yahoo so many options as long as there's even a remote possibility Microsoft will try to acquire the company. As soon as that threat's gone, expect word of "divided" Google executives worried about antitrust regulations to return — leaving Yahoo shareholders without a Google deal or a Microsoft deal. Just Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang's infinite wisdom.

When you start to have companies that control the operating system, control the browsers, they really tie up the top Web sites, and can be used to manipulate stuff in various ways. I think that's unnerving.

The Internet Explorer argument stems from a case small-time browser company Opera filed suit against Microsoft last fall, when it charged that left alone, Internet Explorer will establish "a separate Web." Regulators will also argue that Microsoft should allow documents created in its Office applications to run as effectively on applications sold by other vendors.

Given how Microsoft's last antitrust case went down in Europe, with courts ruling against Microsoft's software bundling practices, there's a good chance the regulators will bloody up the Blue Monster again.

The European Commission did not pursue the same complaints in their own recently concluded antitrust suit against Microsoft, and Mozilla's Firefox and Apple's Safari have been slowly but surely taking market share from Microsoft's dominant product. But it is Europe, so one never knows. Maybe Opera can successfully sue itself into getting some users, and keep Microsoft spending money on lawyers instead of coders.