Despite increasing scrutiny from regulators, chief executive Eric Schmidt showed no signs of being deterred from Google's plan to put into effect its search-ad deal with Yahoo less than a month from now.
"Time is money in our business," Schmidt said in a meeting with reporters at company headquarters in Mountain View, California.
In the absence of an opinion from regulators, the company plans to go ahead with the deal. "We do not know their position," he said — whether it's a great deal, a poor deal or whether regulators will want changes.
He reiterated Google's position that the partnership with Yahoo, signed in August, doesn't require approval, but that regulators could, of course, raise objections after the fact. Some are concerned that the partnership, under which Yahoo will show some Google search ads, could undermine Yahoo's independence and give even more market power to Google.
"My understanding is that, because it's a commercial deal, we have a choice of when we implement it. We voluntarily delayed it so the government could take a look at it," Schmidt said. "The deal was designed precisely to meet the terms of antitrust laws in the US, because we knew it would raise these sorts of questions."
The Yahoo ad deal is one of seemingly innumerable fishes Google has frying. To name a few others: the company also is working on improving the US electricity-distribution grid with General Electric, launched its Chrome web browser two weeks ago, and is building the Android mobile-phone operating system that will go on sale with partner T-mobile on 23 September.
YouTube revenue: Breathe easy
Earlier this year, Schmidt had said one of the company's top priorities is to make money from YouTube, but, on Wednesday, he sounded much more relaxed about the issue.
"In a business, sometimes you have the luxury of patience, and sometimes you're in a really hard situation. We have the luxury of time to try and invest in things that are really revolutionary," said Schmidt, who earlier called a successful YouTube revenue strategy the "holy grail".
The company has been working on various strategies to increase YouTube ad money, including overlay ads, ads in the 'chrome' around the videos, pre-roll and post-roll ads that show before and after a video, and deals with content creators in which Google shares revenue from videos posted without the copyright holder's permission.
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Co-founder Sergey Brin also was comfortable with the online video site's progress.
"Google, as a whole, took a while to get our monetisation going. It grew, but grew very slowly in the early days," Brin said. "YouTube monetisation is a significant business and it's growing pretty quickly."
Android
Android phones are due to be announced on Tuesday, and co-founder Larry Page flashed his briefly. Although the first model is chunky, Google is optimistic.
"I'm optimistic Android will also catch on in the marketplace," Brin said.
Brin said he believes, even before the phones begin shipping, Android has helped the industry. "Another effect of Android [is] with the Nokia announcement with Symbian. They're going to open source that. That's already progress from our point of view and the general trend of openness."
Because Android is open-source software, anyone may use and modify it for free. "I expect there will be others taking that code and producing phones without us," Brin said.
Google is investing in a phone operating system to bring the mobile web to the masses.
"If the internet is widely available, that's good for us. We invest in Android; better browsers; alternate broadband providers, like broadband on powerlines; the equatorial satellite system O3B," Brin said. Improving access to the internet is "core to our mission".
Search does well in areas where mobile phones are widely used, such as Japan. "As people get better phones, they do 20 times more searches," Page said.
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