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According to Reuters, Google might decide to reconsider the advertising partnership with Yahoo! rather than accept the numerous government-imposed antitrust limitations to it, some sources within the two companies maintaining that the two major Web search engines could have announced the deal had fallen apart as early as today.

The deal was announced back in June and involved deploying part of Google’s advertising technology — including the algorithms to match ads to the page content — and use it on Yahoo!’s search results: the former would gain a percentage on the money earned through the advertising, while the latter would benefit from a superior technology that has the potential to bring more money — an estimated $800 mln per year — in the company’s pockets.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the definite decision to drop the deal might come early next week, while an article appeared on PaidContent.org speculates that the timing for such an announcement is still uncertain and could be linked to the results of the upcoming presidential elections:

“What makes next week so important and why does it seem like such a toss-up? It could have something to do with Tuesday’s presidential election. The thinking could be that an Obama win — which would be at least personally supported by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, an avowed Obama supporter— would probably signal a more jaundiced view of what constitutes anti-competitive partnerships. And a McCain win could mean that antitrust regulation would remain fairly loose.”

Others, such as Kara Swisher from All Things Digital, speculate that by delaying the decision Google is sending a signal to the authorities “for not letting the search giant help the struggling Yahoo“. Yahoo!, on the other hand, doesn’t currently seem in the position to, so to speak, “play with the authorities” and risk losing what could be a decisive source of income to invert the downward trend the company is facing over the last few months.

The position was also underlined by Yahoo spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler, who stated that the company is doing its best to drive the deal to a successful conclusion, believing it has the potential to “strengthen Yahoo!’s competitive position in online advertising and help to drive a more robust, higher quality Yahoo! marketplace for our advertisers, publishers and users“.

Reasons for authorities to carefully inspect the deal before allowing it are quite clear: taken together, Google and Yahoo! own over eighty percent of the Web search engine market (according to ComScore), which makes antitrust a serious issue to consider. As a consequence, the deal had to be delayed from June to the beginning of October, when the two companies issued another statement saying that the deal would have to be delayed once more to allow for a complete investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.

For now, the concern of advertisers — who fear that following the deal their running costs could skyrocket — have dominated the scene, as all current indications are that, save for a pre-meditated surprise move from Google, the deal is becoming increasingly unlikely to take place at this point.