Microsoft to Yahoo: Mind if I Gore Your Bull?

“Microsoft’s hostile bid for Yahoo raises troubling questions,” Google chief legal officer David Drummond wrote back in February.

Troubling indeed. Almost as troubling as the questions raised by Google’s (GOOG) partnership with Yahoo (YHOO), as Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Platforms and Services Division, pointed out during a panel discussion at the Cannes Debate today. Commenting on a Yahoo exec’s description of the deal as a “win-win,” Johnson had this to say:

If win is consolidating around 90% of the paid search with Google, you can say, OK, Google would do that as a win. I don’t think that from an industry perspective that supports having choices and having a number of strong players in the advertising business.”

And who better than Microsoft to point this out, given the company’s monopolistic past?