Comcast, which is the second largest ISP in the US, currently has a search & advertising deal with Google which will be expiring at the end of this year.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Comcast is not thrilled with their Google partnership and looking elsewhere to Yahoo, MSN’s Live.com and AOL for a new search & online advertising deal.
Comcast earns $70 million a year in shared revenues via the Google contract, but is looking for somewhere around $100 million.
paidContent adds :
The cable company is looking to expand its other online ad revenues, and is talking to Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL about a three-year deal to sell 80 percent of the advertising on Comcast.net, the story says. It is holding on to the other 20 percent and advertising on its other sites to help it build an in-house broadband sales staff.
Google just lost their Lenovo PC contract to Windows Live Search, losing Comcast would serve a serious blow to the search company, and further expand the reach of Windows Live and Microsoft adCenter : which would be a huge win for Microsoft.
Greg Sterling adds that the Microsoft talks may give Comcast the leverage they need to get what they want from Google:
This would pretty clearly appear to be a negotiating tactic in the hope of using high-level publicity to pressure Google into making desired concessions to Comcast.
